


All The Nights

by NorthernSparrow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Affection, Brief suicidal ideation early in fic, Canon Compliant, Canon-Compliant to S15E06 "Golden Time", Castiel Uses Actual Words, Dean Winchester Uses Actual Words, Depressed Dean Winchester, Everybody Gets Hypothermia, Heavily Implied Love, Hopeful Ending, Hypothermia, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, No Sex, No Smut, Platonic Cuddling, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival cuddling, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21536782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernSparrow/pseuds/NorthernSparrow
Summary: A ghost hunt goes wrong, and Dean ends up fighting for his life in an icy river. A certain angel somehow knows he's in trouble and shows up to help, but doesn't have enough power left to warm up Dean. It's just a simple cold night in the woods, but things can go wrong fast at night in the woods, and soon Cas and Dean must each decide what they'll risk to save the other. And they just might end up so exhausted that they accidentally start talking.Canon compliant; focuses on the Dean/Cas breakup of S15E03, but takes place 2 months later. It's a couple weeks after "Golden Time", S15E06; Eileen has just been brought back; Cas/Dean breakup was 2 mos ago; short FBI phone convo was a couple wks ago. Sam/Eileen implied gently in the background. Warning: NO SMUT and not a totally happy ending yet, but it ends hopefully.(This fic will probably be rendered irrelevant by canon immediately, but I wanted to put a pin in the map right now, before the show ends, & think through my own take on the possible reasons for all the Dean/Castiel tension of the last two years. And see if I could make it all make sense.)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 668
Kudos: 1643
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Not Wallowing At All

* * *

_A/N - Been a crazy year and I've had to devote every second to writing science papers to try to land a new job. I now have the new job, but the resulting cross-country move & now a teaching fellowship in Brazil continued to suck up every second! I gave my last palestra (public lecture) in Brazil yesterday, woke up sick today on my first real day off in months, but at last I have a speck of time for writing. _

_This is just a short ficlet, my attempt at trying to understand — and resolve — the heartbreaking tension between Castiel and Dean. I am trying to let the characters speak for themselves, in a way that feels true to their canon selves, and as a result they have both taken the fic in a slightly different direction than I originally planned. The fic is totally written (been chipping away at it at nights, since 15x03) and will be approx 20K words, but I'm still polishing the last chapters so I will post it one chapter at a time. I'm in Rio at the moment on a Saturday night and am planning to post at least one chapter a day throughout the mini Thanksgiving hiatus from the canon show. Chapters may be short, but more will come very soon._

* * *

It was just nine-thirty in the morning, and Dean had only gotten halfway through his current task (cleaning the ivory-handled pistol) but already he'd become too distracted to continue.

“Distracted” was one word for it. “Depressed” might be another. Whatever he called it, it had been happening more and more often. One moment he'd be washing the Impala, or cleaning the guns, or trying to remember the right ratio of water to coffee — or, more and more now, doing nothing at all but lying around in his room eating junk and marathoning old cartoons — and the next moment he'd be lost in thought, the cartoons unseen, while he stared off into space and thought about.... 

Nothing. Everything.

Right now he had ended up sitting at the little corner table in his room, the half-disassembled pistol on the table, gazing sightlessly across the room at the whiskey bottle and the ever-present shot glass on his bookshelf. Dean flipped the pistol's empty magazine around and around in his hand, and his glance slid idly to the FBI phone. He'd taken to keeping it in his room, always plugged into its charger, but it had never rung again after that one time.

Sam had started using words like “moping” and “wallowing” for all this, and he'd even started dropping some totally unjustified comments about “driving people away." Eileen had restricted herself to her trademark Bambi-eyed sympathetic look — though she'd said a totally weird thing the other day about Dean having gone through a "recent breakup." (Dean had started to get the unsettling feeling that she might have witnessed a lot more than she was letting on, during the weeks when she'd been ghosting around the bunker trying to make herself seen.) Eileen had now taken off temporarily to try to collect some of her old possessions, but Sam was still giving Dean the side-eye about all the cartoon marathons. But really, Dean was behaving perfectly rationally (according to Dean, that is). Especially given the circumstances.

Right now, for example, he wasn't "wallowing" at all. He was only thinking about a few things, in a very rational way.

What he was thinking was: Maybe it was all going to stay this way for good.

Days had passed, and weeks, and then, somehow, months had gone by since that awful ghostpocalypse week. Things seemed to have settled down. Yet everything still felt just terrible. Mom was still dead. Jack was still dead. Not to mention all the rest of them: Rowena, Charlie, Bobby, Kevin... all of them, still dead. Eileen had been a win, of course, a big win... though Dean somehow kept thinking of that as Sam having had the win, not Dean. _That's great that Sam's got Eileen back_ kept crossing his mind, as if Dean had been denied some kind of equivalent win of his own.

And then there was Chuck, obviously, who seemed to be fully in control again, the damned "Equalizer" nothing but a puddle of slag. 

And Cas, meanwhile, had stayed gone. That short tense conversation over the FBI phone had been the only contact in weeks. There'd been nothing since. Dean had even traced the call, pinning down Cas's location to a small lakeshore town in Grand Teton National Park, of all places. A few inquiries revealed there'd been a pretty weird case going on there, which seemed to have been fully resolved. Apparently Cas had solved it. Apparently Cas was doing just fine on his own. Apparently Cas had moved on and was again somewhere unknown. 

Dean lined up a few bullets in a neat little row on his table by the pistol, not really seeing them.

For the first few weeks after Cas walked away, Dean had been royally pissed at him for leaving. He'd known perfectly well that this was irrational; he'd been pissed anyway. Later he'd gotten pissed all over at Cas for not answering his phone, and, later still, pissed at him for blowing off Sam's messages. How dare Cas just take off like this? His role, his _job_ really, was to stick around and help the Winchesters. His job was to stay close, so that... so that... well, really so that Dean could order him around, and rip into him now and then about one or two of Cas's million past mistakes, and needle him now and then about one or two of the millions of critical things that Cas had continually hid from Dean over the years (never mind that Dean had hidden an equal number of equally critical things. Dean's choices were totally justified. It was Cas's choices that were on trial here). Cas was supposed to always be around, or at least no more than a quick call away... and he was supposed to _answer his frickin' phone_. Dean was supposed to be able to snap at him whenever the mood struck, at random intervals, about all the things Cas had been doing wrong. Just to... to drive home... Something. To... teach him a lesson. About something. To... keep him on his toes. About something. Really Dean just felt he needed to keep a suspicious eye on him, because Cas... because Cas might... because what if Cas might be....

Dean shut down this line of thought before it progressed any further, grabbing the pistol magazine and finally loading it from his little line of bullets. He'd found it was best to cut that particular line of Castiel-thoughts off at the pass, before it became too clear in his head, before he had a chance to dwell too much on a certain specific horrible possibility that had been haunting him for months. The strategy all along had been to continually needle Cas without really thinking too deeply about _why._

This "strategy," such as it was, had not included any possibility of Cas actually reacting to all this, or taking any kind of action. So when Cas had suddenly just up and left, the whole strategy had kind of crumbled. 

Dean was uncomfortably aware he had probably been treating Cas a little unfairly. Maybe a lot unfairly. And he was also aware, deeper down, that a part of him, a rather confused part, had always wanted to do something quite different with Castiel. In fact a totally different strategy sometimes floated up in his mind... and in certain of his dreams.... 

But, bizarre dreams aside, for whatever reason a seed of doubt had emerged about Castiel, and that seed had rooted, and recently it had flowered. There seemed to be no stuffing that particular cat into that bag. 

Cas couldn't be trusted, that was the essence of it. 

So all in all it was really pretty annoying how Cas was _always o_ n Dean's mind even after he'd up and left. Surely this must somehow be Cas's fault too. In fact it had gotten rather comforting knowing that everything was always Cas's fault. Cas was supposed to always be here to take the blame, to be the handy scapegoat: the one who let Jack in, the one who let Mom die, the one who didn't tell Dean about that stupid snake, the one who screwed up every plan and let Rowena die. Everything was supposed to always be Cas's fault. It was easier that way. 

_Because otherwise it's my fault_ , Dean thought. He seemed to now be pouring out a few fingers of the whiskey into the shot-glass, without having really decided to do so, and he faltered in mid-pour as the thought sank in. 

_It's my fault._

Dean's fault for agreeing to take in Jack, when he'd known all along how dangerous a nephilim would be.

Dean's fault for getting suckered into Jack's bright-eyed innocent-son act. Dean's fault for getting attached. Dean's fault for letting Jack cloud his judgment.

And ultimately Dean's fault, it therefore followed, for letting Mom die.

If it wasn't Cas's fault, then it had to be Dean's.

All of which was irrelevant now anyway because Mom was still dead and Jack was still dead and Cas was just plain fucking gone. 

Dean heard steps approaching down the hallway; Sam was coming. Grabbing the glass, Dean slugged down the shot of whiskey in a single swallow, and shoved the cork stopper back in the bottle. By the time Sam showed up in the doorway, laptop in hand, Dean was again calmly checking the ammo in his pistol.

Though Dean had forgotten to put the empty shot glass away. Or the bottle back on the shelf. Both were still sitting right there on the table next to Dean, the glass still with some telltale drops of whiskey in the bottom. Drinking whiskey at nine-thirty in the morning, and throughout the day actually, really wasn't a big deal, and in fact it really ought to be considered normal, shouldn't it? Every day it seemed to be getting harder to remember why most people didn't start drinking the very moment they woke up.

Sam did look at the bottle, and his gaze lingered for a moment on the shot glass, and Dean braced himself for potential comments. But Sam said nothing but, "Got a possible case."

Dean glanced up at him. Sam tilted his laptop toward Dean. It was displaying a news article from some small-town Oregon rag, an article titled "Concerns Mount About Continued Bridge Suicides." 

Sam explained, "People keep drowning in this little mountain town. Jumping off a bridge into a river. Except, a few survivors say they didn't jump; they insist they were pushed. Same bridge, just before Thanksgiving every year, and Thanksgiving's coming up--"

"Let's go," said Dean. He grabbed the magazine, the ammo, and the pistol (and, well, the bottle of whiskey too, of course) and stood to toss them all in his bag at the foot of the bed. 

Sam blinked. "It's in Oregon," he said. "Real deep woods, up in the hills. Bit of a drive. We've still got a couple days; we could head out in the morning. And besides, don't you want to hear some details first? See if it's really worth checking out?"

"Nah, let's get the show on the road," said Dean. He zipped his bag closed. "Wouldn't want to keep our audience waiting, would we?" Sam winced at the reference to Chuck, but Dean said nothing more; he walked straight past Sam, and out the bedroom door, and directly to the Impala in the garage. 

Cases were good, he’d realized. Cases required focus. Cases needed concentration. Cases kept Dean from thinking too much about anything else. Like how angels looked when they cried; like how friends looked when they turned away forever; like how they sounded on the phone afterwards, bitter and cold, and how the bunker door sounded when it closed, booming, echoing, when somebody walked away for the very last time.

* * *

_A/N - More soon. If you are liking this, please leave a comment - I love to hear from you._

_Thank you for reading my story!_


	2. Machinations

_A/N - Two chapters will post today since they flow well as a pair._

_Warning: Since this case involves people jumping off bridges, Dean's stream of thought is going to drift now and then to mild suicidal ideation. This will not continue very much further and will remain as only hypothetical thoughts, but consider yourself warned._

* * *

Two days later Dean pulled the Impala over at a mountain overlook high in the forests of southern Oregon. As Sam had warned, it had indeed been a long drive, and after today’s eleven-hour shift behind the wheel, Dean felt cramped and even a little sore. (Hadn't long drives used to be comfortable? What was wrong with him these days?) But they were near their destination at last, and Dean had pulled over for a view of their surroundings. (Well, and also to shake out a slightly sore knee.)

Both brothers took a moment to stretch their limbs by the car, Sam doing some weird twisty yoga things while Dean rubbed his knee a little bit and made a brief and futile effort to touch his toes. Then they leaned on the hood for a few minutes, gazing out over the overlook at a spectacular view of their destination.

The rolling hills before them were carpeted with the drooping branches of deep green Douglas fir, hemlock and pine, under a patchy overcast sky. Some miles away, across a misty valley, a small town was nestled on a forested mountain slope. From this distance the town appeared just as little speckles of tiny buildings, with a small arch of a bridge visible on one side. A picturesque winding river flowed under the bridge and away from the town, the river eventually disappearing into a rocky gorge. Several miles downstream, far to Dean's left, a dramatic waterfall poured out of the gorge, dropping down to a lower valley that was barely visible as a green haze in the far distance, all wilderness, with no more towns in sight.

"That's all National Forest, you know," Sam said, trying to consult the map on his phone. He held the phone up higher in the air, peering at its little screen, and finally said, "Okay, no cell service here actually, but if I remember right it's wilderness clear to the Pacific Ocean. This whole area was all logging towns before the mills closed. Now it's just a few vacation cabins here and there." He lowered the phone and gestured up to the little town. "That's where we're headed," he said. "Crystal River, Oregon. Whole town's been in kind of an economic depression for decades, far as I can tell. I think that after the mills closed they kind of tried to rebrand themselves as a tourist destination — for hikers, birdwatchers, that kind of thing — but it's still kind of economically depressed. Enough so that when people started falling off the bridge every couple years, for a while folks just figured it was suicide."

Dean nodded, saying, "Yeah, hard to snap out of a depression like that. Suicide's understandable."

Sam shot him a slightly worried look. " _Economic_ depression, is what I said. And, the point is that the bridge deaths _weren't_ suicides. Something's pushing people off. Or at least that's what a couple survivors said."

"Yeah, right, right," Dean agreed hurriedly. "I just meant, I can imagine that people _would've_ thought suicide, at first. Must get kind of bleak here in winter. The landscape’s straight out of Twin Peaks. Picturesque but kinda dark, you know?" 

Sam was still looking at Dean a little oddly, but eventually he nodded, looking out at the view again: the gray overcast sky, the somber deep green of the conifers, the distant waterfall. "Yeah, I kinda see what you mean," he said. "Twin-Peaks-ish, sure."

They finally got back in the car, but now Dean kept glancing at the view. Twin Peaks, indeed. Was it just coincidence that the setting of the little distant town looked so much like the eerie TV show? Twin Peaks had been a surreal murder-mystery show, he now remembered, full of creepy supernatural occurrences.

Dean couldn't help adding, as fired up the Impala again, "Perfect setting for the next chapter in our own show, huh?"

Sam shifted a little in his seat. "We don't know that he's still... um... writing," he said. He'd lowered his voice, and he added, "You know what I mean. This case might all be real. He... he might not be controlling everything. He might've... um... taken off again? Taken a break?"

"That's what we thought last time," said Dean, pulling the Impala back on the road. For the next few minutes he tried to focus on navigating the car around a series of steep bends. A few scattered gas stations and motels finally came into view, and beyond those was the bridge over a river, looking much larger now, and beyond that was the town.

But Dean was still thinking about what Sam had just said. _This case might all be real._

Dean pulled the car over just short of the bridge. He found a parking spot, threw the gearshift into Park and crossed both arms above the steering wheel, looking out at the town for a long moment. The Impala was still idling, at a rough purr; Sam turned in his seat, giving Dean a questioning look.

"That werewolf case," Dean said at last. "From a few weeks back. The Lilith thing. It seemed like a routine werewolf gig at first, right?" Sam nodded, still watching Dean. Dean paused a moment, thinking, and finally said, "Just like how this one seems like a routine ghost hunt. Seems like the usual routine. But nothing's routine any more. That's the problem."

Sam slumped back in his seat with a tired nod. He said, "Yeah. I keep thinking, what if he... what if this is another of his... um... Chuck's... stories?" He'd even dropped his voice again, now speaking just above a whisper. As if that could possibly keep an entity like Chuck from overhearing. THE entity, God himself, with an extremely capital G.

Dean finally shut off the engine and got out of the Impala to get a closer look at the bridge. As he stepped out, his knee twinged again. He slammed the car door a bit harder than he meant to. It was hard not to feel frustrated — frustrated at his stupid knee, frustrated at this feeling that Chuck was haunting their every step. 

Deliberately taking a deep breath of the crisp mountain air, Dean tried to settle himself and focus on the case. 

He walked over to the bridge, Sam by his side. The river flowed through a small rocky gorge here, a gorge with steep sides that almost qualified as cliffs, lined with scrubby short trees clinging to the rocks, and spanned by the elegant old bridge. Just where the bridge began, there was a fragmented old stone wall beside the road, perched right on the edge of the little gorge. A large boulder by the wall bore a historical plaque, and both brothers took a moment to read it; apparently the old wall was all that remained of a sawmill that had once stood here. There was a drawing of a long-gone waterwheel that had once turned in the river below. 

"This is why the town's here," said Sam. "The old mill used to be here. They used water power to saw the big old logs, back in the day. Long gone now. It burned down in the sixties. The bridge deaths started a few years later."

Dean hopped up on the edge of the old wall to look down at the river, keeping a careful hand on a nearby tree trunk. Directly under the bridge, the river shot through a steep channel about forty feet below street level, flowing between some jagged concrete foundations where the waterwheel must once have been. After that the river widened out, following the gorge downstream in a rocky, zig-zag course, patches of whitewater appearing here and there. The rushing sound of the water was clearly audible.

Sam climbed up next to him. "It tends to happen at sunset on Thanksgiving week," Sam said. "Usually on the Wednesday but there've been some Monday and Tuesday events too. Not totally consistent. I'm thinking it might track the weather? There's a little variation. Usually the people fall into the water, sometimes to the rocks. If they fall in the water they sometimes survive, but apparently it's pretty dicey, and the water's cold. If they land on the rocks they're done, obviously." 

Dean nodded, looking down. It was possibly a survivable drop, assuming the person hit the water. But that water was slick and black, moving fast; even if people landed in the water, the fall could easily be fatal.

"I can why people thought it was suicide," Dean said. "Pretty appealing spot for a jump."

Sam turned and gave Dean a long look. 

"Appealing?" Sam said, after a moment.

Dean sighed. "I just meant, _if_ somebody was super depressed, _maybe_ it would seem like a good spot. Don't look at me like that. Jeez, I'm not _that_ eager to see Billie again." 

Though even as he said this, he began to wonder. If he hadn't already met Billie, if he hadn't known all about Death and what came after, would he have considered something like this? 

If he weren't always so worried about leaving Sam alone....

If he weren't so convinced that Chuck _wanted_ one or both brothers dead....

If, just hypothetically speaking, somebody _was_ wanting to end it all, it was a pretty storybook setting for a dramatic death, that's all.

_Storybook._ Dean's blood seemed to chill a little as this idea struck him.

Could Chuck possibly be setting up this whole bridge-jump storyline on purpose? 

Dean muttered, "I am not gonna give him what he wants." Sam's expression darkened. Dean hopped down off the wall (trying to ignore another twinge in his knee) and looked around at the little town again, and its beautiful setting: an old logging town perched astride a broad tumbling river, rugged green mountains stretching out in all directions into a mountain wilderness. Thick banks of gray cloud overhead, with the sun peeking through dramatically now and then. Overall, a nice crisp fall day with that frosty November nip in the air. It was indeed a picture-book setting of a little mountain town. Could it be just a planned stage setting? 

Sam must have been thinking along the same lines, for he was looking out at the view too. When he stepped down to join Dean, he said, "Can't it be exactly what it seems — just a town in the Oregon mountains? A town that's really haunted, by a real ghost. A town where maybe we can actually do some good." After a moment he added, "Real good, I mean. Not just playing a part in a script."

Dean shrugged and said, "Look, it's impossible to tell what's real, we both know that now." He gestured at the town, and the river, and the entire sprawling landscape. "All I know is, there's still monsters out there. There's still shifters and werewolves and vamps, right? There's still ghosts. There's still things that go bump in the night. Even if it's all..." He hesitated, groping for the right phrase. "Even if it's all just Chuck's machinations, either way there's still things to hunt."

"Machinations?" Sam echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Where'd _that_ word come from?"

Dean winced. It was Castiel's word, of course. Everything Cas had said in those last couple days was still ringing in Dean's head.

"Heard it somewhere," Dean answered gruffly. "C'mon, we got a case to solve. Machinations or not, there's people to save either way."

" _Machinations_ ," repeated Sam, shaking his head. "Well, I hope you're right. Even if it's just a stage set, maybe it still counts if we can just pull people off the stage."

"It still counts," said Dean, with much more certainty than he felt. He turned to head back to the Impala, planning to try pick out some id's, come up with some kind of a cover story, and play whatever part they were supposed to play in this possible-ghost story. As he approached the car his knee twinged again, and he found himself rubbing his neck, too; his shoulders were still knotted up from the long drive. _Forty years old_ , Dean thought to himself. _You're getting old. Over the hill. Far too old for this shit, anyway._ And old enough, it seemed, that the hunt they were about to do seemed not exciting any more, or interesting, but simply exhausting.

* * *

_A/N - Next chapter will post shortly. Drop a comment if you have a minute! Thanks for reading my story._


	3. Another Day, Another Diner

* * *

The case actually took a while to unravel. It was several days later, a few hours before sunset on Tuesday, before they'd finally started to figure it out. The drownings seemed to be due to a ghost that took particular pleasure in tossing people into the river as the family holidays approached — especially the day before Thanksgiving. They'd managed to interview two of the victims who had survived the fall and had managed to scramble out of the river, but most of the victims had drowned. Some had been swept to their deaths over the waterfall a few miles downstream; a few had simply never been seen again, presumably washed all the way out to sea.

It actually was a bit of a confusing case, for it had been hard to track down the town deputy who had most of the info, and some of the survivors didn't want to talk. But after a full day, and a night, and another day, and another night, of trudging around the town doing interviews, and poring through old archives in the town library, Sam and Dean thought they'd identified the most likely possibility: the ghost of a local mill worker who'd apparently jumped off the bridge just before Thanksgiving some fifty years ago, in the throes of depression shortly after the mill had burned down. He'd had family troubles too, and seemed to be deliberately selecting victims who had been going through tough times with their own families. It was almost as if the ghost thought it was actually helping its victims; "helping" by giving them a little push over the edge — literally.

Sam had finally pinned down where the mill worker was probably buried, up the hills a bit farther, in the old town graveyard. Some of the town records of the burials had been lost, but they'd narrowed it down to a few possible graves. Come nightfall, they might find out for certain: today was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and sunset tonight was a likely time for the ghost to show.

"Seem too pat, though?" Sam said quietly, as they grabbed a quick dinner in the local diner. 

Dean looked up from his burger. "What do you mean?" 

"You know...." Sam said, a little reluctantly. He was fidgeting a bit, his left hand opening and closing restlessly on the table. Dean raised an eyebrow; Sam hadn't done that in years. That was the hand that had the scar on the palm, the scar Sam used to press, years and years ago, to figure out if his hallucinations were real.

Sam immediately tucked his hand out of sight under the table and hurried on with, "It's just, I don't like the parallels. Is it too much like that very first case we had back when we first started looking for Dad? Remember? The woman in white? We worked a case on the bridge then, what was it, fifteen years ago, we're working a case on a bridge now—"

"There's more than two bridges in the United States," Dean pointed out, a little gruffly. "Can't a ghost fling a few people off a bridge now and then without it being about us?" But now the idea was nagging at him, and at last Dean set his burger down with a heavy sigh. "Dammit, we're gonna have to do this with every single frickin' case now, aren't we?" he said, gazing at the burger. His appetite had disappeared. "We're always gonna be thinking, is it real, is it legit... is it too easy...too predictable...."

"Are there too many parallels," Sam added quietly. "To old cases. Or, like, that pair of werewolf brothers last time. That was too much like... well, too much like us."

Dean nodded. He'd noticed the pattern too. "So we have to look out for any sibling pairs," he said. "Or maybe, is the witness a little too innocent, a little too squeaky-clean." He added, "Coming on a little too strong...." He thought a moment more. "Lilith was kind of a crappy actress, actually. Oversold it a bit. Maybe we should be looking for bad acting."

Sam gave a little grimace of agreement. "That whole case was like a bad high school lit teacher was directing it. Too many obvious metaphors. Too story-like to be believable."

"Well," Dean said, "That might actually be good news, because this bridge case hasn't been at all as easy. It's been kind of annoying, hasn't it?" Sam leaned back in his seat, considering, as Dean explained, "It was a confusing story, it took absolutely forever to track that deputy down on the first day, the second victim's family wouldn't even talk to us, the survivors didn't want to talk either, the most useful interview was the sixty-year-old wino who was not _remotely_ coming on to me — what I mean is, not at all like Lilith — and there's no pair of creepy brothers anywhere that look a little too much like psycho-us. Maybe this case is actually real?"

"Maybe," said Sam. But he sounded uncertain.

Both brothers were staring silently at their uneaten food now. Dean had another idea now, about a certain colleague who might've been able to help verify whether things were what they seemed, like determining whether any of the "victims" were really demons.

A certain colleague who could see demons' true faces might've been able to help, just for example.

Dean fiddled a little with the straw of his Coke. The Coke no longer looked very appealing.... A thought struck him about how to make the Coke much more appealing, and he made an abortive move toward the flask in his inner jacket pocket, and had to stop himself. _Just drink the_ Coke, he thought. _No whiskey_.

Sam said, uncertainly, "I, um, I texted Cas a few hours ago."

 _He had to go and bring Cas up_ , thought Dean sourly. 

Sam added, "I was wondering if he might have some ideas. About how to tell if a case is real. Or about other demons that might come back. But he didn't answer."

"Gee, what a surprise," said Dean, keeping his voice even. Even after that FBI phone call, Cas _still_ wasn't answering Sam's messages? Now Dean kind of wanted to give Cas another talking-to about that. Drum some sense into him. Needle him a little bit, lay into him a bit, push him a bit.... until he...

_....walked away...._

Dean took a swig of the Coke. It was too sweet, and too bland. 

Sam said, his voice low, "The worst is that the demons can come back." He let out a quiet sigh. "Nobody was supposed to ever come back from the Empty. Just Cas."

"Just Cas," Dean repeated, stirring his straw around idly in the glass of Coke. "And now Lilith."

"Lilith and Cas," said Sam.

"Just Lilith and Cas," echoed Dean. "Lilith and Cas. The only two to ever come back from the Empty. Lilith and Cas." Sam glanced at him, and Dean paused a moment, thinking _Lilith and Cas,_ and then he almost said it. He almost said the forbidden thought out loud, The Thought, the thought that had been keeping him up at night for months, the thought about Cas that would horrify Sam and break his heart and no doubt cause a huge argument. Dean actually almost spoke The Thought out loud.

He was inordinately pleased with himself when he managed to bite his tongue (literally) and gulp it down unspoken. Finally he said, "All I know is, whatever flunkies Chuck is sending our way, _nothing_ is what it seems any more. Absolutely nothing. But we gotta go through the moves anyway, because..." He paused, looking around the little diner. He had been about to go into a little pep talk, trying to buoy up both their moods, but as he looked around he lost his momentum. Everything was still seeming too much like a stage set, diner included, and as Dean scanned around with a critical eye, the allure of eating in an endless string of little small-town diners, for year after year, decade after decade of his life, seemed to pop like a soap bubble. Had even the diners been a sham? Instead of diners seeming funky and retro and charming, everything suddenly looked shabby and worn; tippy linoleum tables, a tired-looking waitress, a boring menu with boring bad food. Another day, another diner; was this really what he wanted to be doing? _I used to love all this_ , thought Dean. 

"Ah, fuck it," he muttered, reaching in his jacket at last and pulling out the flask. The inevitable small frown came over Sam's face, but Dean ignored that as he unscrewed the cap, poured a very healthy dollop of Jack Daniels into his Coke, recapped the flask and took a huge thirsty sip of heavily spiked whiskey-and-Coke through the straw. "Much better," he said with a sigh. 

Sam didn't say anything; the miserable look on his face was enough.

"What?" said Dean. "I'm done driving for the day." He stood, pulled out his wallet and threw a twenty on the table. "C'mon. Nearly sunset. You at the cemetary, me at the bridge, that's the plan, right? Let's get a move on."

"I still don't like you being alone at the bridge," Sam said quietly. "I was thinking, it'd be better if we had a third person on our team."

"Well, we _don't_ have a third person on our team, _obviously_ ," said Dean. "Eileen's gone this week, and there's nobody else. _Right?"_ He scowled at Sam and stalked out the door, a little annoyed. Or a lot annoyed. Or maybe a little sad. Or a lot sad; it was incredibly hard to tell the difference, these days.

* * *

_A/N - That's all for today! Tomorrow I have a plane flight from Rio back to Sao Paulo and will polish up the next chapter on the plane._

_Please drop a comment if you have a minute! I love to hear from you._


	4. Sunset at the Old Mill

_A/N - Just flew from Rio to Sao Paulo and am truly wiped out - still a bit sick, and planning to spend all evening curled up in bed. But here's one more chapter for you. Hope you enjoy._

* * *

Hunts always involved a tedious amount of waiting around. This time, on this hunt (which Dean was now reasonably confident was a "real hunt" and not a "Chuck hunt") there was a long time waiting to see if the ghost would show. Sam had taken the Impala up the mountain to the cemetary; Dean was stationed at the bridge. Because Dean might have to deal with the ghost, he had the shotgun, loaded with rock salt as per usual, while Sam had taken the pistol. Getting cell service anywhere outside the town had been a persistent issue, but Sam reported that he still had a small speck of cell service in the cemetary, and though phone calls kept dropping, so far they'd been able to trade sporadic texts back and forth to coordinate. 

It had turned out that the exact location of the mill worker's cemetary plot was no longer recorded at Crystal River's tiny city hall, and the actual graves in the cemetary were not all that well marked either, so earlier they'd dug out three likely possibilities that all shared the same last name. The idea was that, at sunset, Sam would burn the bones of the most promising of the graves, the one that seemed to date from the right decade, while Dean watched the actual ghost (assuming it even showed up) to be sure it caught fire. This would let Sam know if he'd have to keep on burning more bones from the other graves, or even if they'd have to dig up more graves tomorrow and try again.

There was an obvious hazard involved in Dean being at the very bridge where the attacks happened, but he'd assured Sam that he'd be careful to stay off the bridge, keeping to one side of the gorge. And of course he was planning to keep scanning his surroundings alertly at all times. He'd actually been thinking originally to hide out in the bushes just upslope of the bridge, but it had turned out it was getting pretty chilly. It wasn't true winter yet, still only November, but winter was never far off in these mountain towns, and with the sun on its way down there was now a frosty nip in the air. Dean finally realized he'd need to keep moving, so he started walking back and forth a little bit on the sidewalk just short of the bridge. He had the salt-loaded shotgun ready, trying to keep it tucked inconspicuously along his side so that passing drivers wouldn't notice.

Dean stamped his feet as he watched the last rays of sunset fading over the hills. Annoyingly, his knee was still a little sore. One hip was even aching now too. It was as if the whole night was conspiring to remind him that he was now past forty. 

_I'm just a little cold_ , he decided. _I'd feel a lot better with a hot beverage. Should've brought the coffee thermos. Why didn't I bring the coffee thermos?_ It was sitting back at the bunker....

... and this was because Cas had been the one who packed the thermos. Cas had taken over coffee duty almost completely during the past year. He'd even started bringing Dean a fresh hot cup of coffee every morning, though usually in those teensy little 1950s china coffee cups. The 1950s china cups were too small, of course — Cas should've been using mugs — but Cas would always use a 1950s Men Of Letters cup and a matched 1950s Men Of Letters saucer and even a 1950s Men Of Letters spoon, and just the right amount of sugar, and a dash of milk like Dean liked (real milk, whole milk, none of that worthless blue skim stuff), and he'd bring it over to Dean and set it right by Dean's side. And even though it was always too small a serving, Dean had never gotten around to mentioning that a mug would've held more coffee. 

Maybe because Cas always brought a second serving twenty minutes later, anyway.

Cas often got coffee for Sam, too, of course. But, coincidentally, the majority of Cas's coffee-making had seemed to coincide with the times of day when Dean tended to want some coffee.

Sometimes when Cas brought the coffee, he'd also heal Dean up from whatever scrapes had accumulated during the previous week. In fact all the annoying aches and pains — the knee, the shoulders, the hip — seemed to have multiplied exponentially since Cas had left. 

It occurred to Dean now that maybe Castiel's near-weekly healings hadn't been just about injuries from hunting. Maybe Cas had been quietly protecting both brothers from some of the ravages of age. 

_Well, he doesn't have any powers now anyway,_ Dean thought. _He probably couldn't fix my knee, even if he were here._

But he could've still brought the coffee. 

He would've still made the coffee. He would've made the coffee, and he would've remembered to bring the thermos.

He would've still been here to talk to. He could've been the third hunter. He could've been standing here right next to Dean, or maybe stationed on the other side of the bridge. They could've talked, or at least texted, and Dean could've said... Dean would've said....

Dean rolled his eyes at himself. It had happened again; he'd started thinking about Cas, and his frame of mind was getting dangerously close to "prayer". This had been happening on just about every single hunt lately. Dean always tried to shut it off, to get his mind onto something else, but stopping from thinking about Cas was like trying to stop a mile-long freight train. Inevitably Dean always saw three images next, almost like still frames from a movie:

First, the look on Cas's face when Dean had said... that thing he'd said. 

Second, the tone in Cas's voice a minute later, when he'd said the thing _he'd_ said. Just a simple reply; but with such devastating simplicity. All he'd done was plainly state the truth of how Dean had been acting. That had been enough. More than enough.

Third, that look just before he'd turned away. That glitter in his eyes. 

_I made an angel cry_ , Dean thought, and as always he was rather awed by that thought, and more than a little confused. The lore said angels didn't cry — that their eyes just didn't work like that, that they didn't have that kind of connection to the vessel. 

Of course, Cas probably didn't have a normal connection to his vessel anyway. In fact he didn't have a normal vessel, period. It had somehow been reassembled, or recreated, after he'd been to the Empty.

_What if I was right?_ Dean thought. (He did not focus on this thought more explicitly; it was best not to think too much about it.) This thought, though he kept it vague in his head, always made him miserable.

_What if I was wrong?_ he thought next, as he always did, and this thought always made him nearly sick to his stomach. 

Because, the thing was, if Dean was wrong...

Some ruptures couldn't be fixed. 

Some things, once said, could never be unsaid. Some kinds of damage could not be repaired. And Dean knew that some friendships, once ended, were over for good. 

Dean shivered in the dark at the edge of the bridge, hands tightening on the shotgun as a deep chill seemed to sweep over him. For a piercingly awful moment he saw it all again: Cas turning away, that shine in his eyes.... 

He tucked the shotgun under one arm, groped for the flask in his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and took a quick swig, closing his eyes for a moment as the whiskey burned down his throat.

Which meant his eyes were closed when he was attacked. A brutal blow to the back of his head took him completely by surprise and he dropped both his flask and the shotgun, staggering forwards. Too late Dean realized that the chill in the air wasn't just a normal winter chill. The frickin' ghost was here and it had actually snuck up on him. It struck him again, this time a vicious blow on his back that sent sprawling to his knees — again moving him slightly _toward_ the bridge. The ghost was behind him, not even close to being on the bridge, and this hadn't been in any of the witnesses' stories, and there was no time to figure out what had gone wrong — though now Dean remembered Sam saying, _There's a little variation._ They'd only been discussing the day of the week, dammit, but Dean should have thought, he should have _realized,_ that this ghost had some flexibility! The plan was gonna have to change now, for the ghost was in totally the wrong place, behind Dean, well off the damn bridge. Dean scrambled to his feet, looking back; the ghost was now making repeated sudden lunges toward Dean, little jump-scares as if trying to startle him.

It dawned then that the mill worker ghost was actually trying to herd Dean onto the bridge.

"I am NOT gonna go there," said Dean, to the ghost, who turned out to be a thin, worn-looking drowned man with long, lank, dripping hair. It only lunged at him once again, this time with its arms up, fingers reaching toward him in an alarming attack. Dean made a snap decision and bolted the only direction he could, scrambling past the historical-marker boulder to the old mill foundation stones. The ghost followed incredibly fast, apparating right to the dead center of the mill walls, and too late Dean remembered this was where the dead guy had actually worked for probably his whole career. It would probably have even more power here. And sure enough, a moment later the ghost was holding a new weapon, an extremely lethal-looking axe, doubtless some kind of mill-related forestry tool that he'd used right in this very spot, back when he'd been alive. 

_Something_ _always goes_ _wrong,_ Dean thought, backing up from the ghost. _Something always goes wrong_. And the something that always went wrong was in fact _not_ always Castiel, because Cas was long gone and yet everything was going completely wrong anyway. In fact it was going much wronger than usual because now Dean's frickin' knee was giving out on him too, buckling as he backed up, forty-year-old hunter that he was, with no angel any more to pour the Fountain of Youth repeatedly onto him every week. Dean spun to try to run, but the damn knee gave another sharp twinge as he turned. Dean suffered a wobbly step just as the ghost apparated directly in front him. The ghost lurched forward in one of those freaky freeze-frame attacks, lanky wet hair swaying around its drowned face, its head shuddering on its shoulders, the axe raised, and now Dean had to scramble right up onto the mill foundation wall. In a flash he saw what his next move could be: a high jump _over_ the ghost to land nimbly on the next wall.

Or that was the plan, at least. As he jumped, the ghost burst into flame right under him — apparently Sam had found the right bones — but this actually did not help Dean at all, for his knee had buckled again right when he'd jumped, and that meant his jump was far too low. Even while aflame, the ghost used its last seconds of existence to stretch out one arm, and it managed one last perfectly timed shove, just enough to put Dean off balance when he landed. And then Dean was falling. Falling the wrong way. Not back to the interior of the old mill, but off the other side of the stone wall. The river side.

There was a horrific moment of plummeting downward, a moment that lasted far too long, the acceleration gripping him, the air rushing past. _Stupid_ , _stupid_ , _stupid_ , Dean chastised himself, remembering the jagged rocks and the concrete waterwheel foundation at the bottom of the gorge. For a split second he thought, with a burst of illogical hope, _Maybe Cas'll catch me,_ but then he remembered that Cas was gone. 

_That's it then_ , Dean thought. There was actually a feeling of relief to think it might finally all be over. For maybe this time he'd finally stay dead? 

He hit the surface in such a tremendous thumping punch that at first he was certain he'd indeed hit solid ground. Hell, Heaven, Purgatory or the Empty, whatever came next, it seemed to be over for him here on Earth. But instead he was underwater in the wet and the cold and the dark, all the air knocked out of him. He'd hit the water, and he was still alive, tumbling like a leaf in the rushing mountain river.

* * *

_A/N - More tomorrow. Please drop a comment if you have a moment! I hope you are enjoying this!_


	5. The River

The water seemed limitlessly black, frigidly cold, and infinitely deep. He felt it grip him right away and start moving him along, effortlessly, in some kind of deep current. But there was no clue as to which way was up, no hint of sky, no glimmer of light visible in any direction. Dean knew he was probably sinking even deeper. His boots felt like lead weights, his jacket a great heavy blanket, as if a huge fist had taken hold of him and was pulling him down to the very bottom of an endless ocean, and he struggled to get loose from some of his layers. He managed to fight free of his jacket, and then kicked one boot off, and then the other. He could swim now, but in which direction? His lungs seemed on fire. _Which way? Which way was up?_ At last he caught a glimmer of silver in one direction. The moon? He swam desperately toward it, heartbeat pounding in his ears, throat burning like fire, and finally broke the surface with a huge gasp, panting desperately.

Abovewater the noise was astonishing, the river's roar as loud as a freight train. Dean looked around bewildered, trying to get his bearings even as he was still catching his breath, still dazed from the fall and from the ghost’s initial blow to his head. 

He was bobbing in a great dark flood that was running fast into the night. The river was moving much faster than had seemed apparent from the bridge; what had looked like a fairly ordinary river from above now seemed as wide as the Amazon and as fast as lightning. Still gasping and dizzy, Dean looked frantically from side to side, yelling for help while he tried to figure out which shore was closer, but it was so dark now that he couldn't see either shore clearly. The last light of sunset was fading from the sky, and the only light now was from a rising moon that was low on the horizon, just peeking over the trees. Dean managed to twist around to look behind him, and was shocked to find that he couldn't see the bridge or the water-wheel channel any more; the river had already swept him far downstream. The town was still visible, but only just; it already seemed tiny, and its little lights vanished into the distance even as he watched. In a matter of seconds there were no houses or lights visible at all any more, just shadowy dark banks that now seemed alarmingly distant, the river bearing him relentlessly along. The surface of the water was alive with reflected moonlight, sparkling and glittering, dancing with motion. _This could get nasty_ , Dean thought, and as the daze of his heart-stopping fall wore off and the cold of the river water started to bite into his muscles, he begin to swim in earnest. It was dawning on him that this was not a calm river at all. This was a mountain river. Would there be rapids, somewhere?

Sure enough waves and valleys of water began forming as the river rolled over boulders and through rills and eddies. Dean redoubled his efforts to swim, but the nearest shore was at least twenty yards off. He’d crossed only half that distance when he was caught in a frighteningly fast channel of water that yanked him into a zig-zag course past hidden underwater obstacles. Big hummocks of strangely stationary water shot past, some of them several feet tall and gleaming like satin in the moonlight — standing waves, he realized, waves marking the positions of underwater boulders, waves that held their position with unearthly stillness as the water poured through them, and over them, and around them. Dean flew past at least three of these hummocks too fast to take even one stroke, for he was fighting hard now just to keep his head above water, and the river simply swept him along as if he were no more than a fallen twig. How bad were these rapids going to get? 

Dean felt himself panting. In a brief area of calm in the rapids he started swimming toward shore again — all his previous efforts had been undone, and he was back in the center of the river — but his arms seemed much heavier, the river much wider, the shore even farther away. _Okay, this is officially scary_ , he thought. 

More than scary. This was dangerous. He knew he was tiring, his strokes slowing. He'd lost his phone with his jacket, so there was no hope of calling Sam, and he was far out of earshot of the town. _This is exactly how all the victims died_ , he thought. _If Cas were here,_ he thought next, _if Cas were here and could still fly, he'd get me out of this —_ but Cas wasn't here, and Cas couldn't fly anyway, and Cas's "powers were failing", and — 

The rapids weren't over; another wild bumpy section rapid surged into view and this time he was rolled directly over one of the standing waves, shooting helplessly across a pillow of fast chilly water. On the far side there seemed to be nothing at all, no land and no water, just a cavernous hole, a deep well of dark emptiness. Dean managed to grab a breath as he flew into the hole, where he was plunged deep into cold dark water underneath. The force of the water was unbelievable; Dean couldn't even try to swim, and for a terrifying moment he was simply spun in place and shaken like a rag doll, desperately holding his breath. There seemed to be no up or down in any direction, just whirling endlessly until his lungs were bursting. At random he was suddenly released, and he bobbed to the surface, but ahead was another hummock of water and another hole, and ahead of that another one, and another, and another, and Dean knew he had no hope at all of swimming out of this, for he was struggling hard now just to keep his head above water. He went under briefly; he fought back to the surface, gasping; a wave of whitewater hit him full in the face and he gagged on a mouthful of water; he went under again, longer this time, and when he resurfaced he was choking again, and so exhausted he could barely move his arms. More rapids were ahead.

It came to Dean that he was going to drown. 

He was going to die in this river. He was actually going to die here; he was going to be killed in the end not by Chuck, not by Lucifer, not by demons or monsters or angels, but by idiotically slugging down some booze while hunting a very ordinary ghost. And in the end he was going to be killed by nothing more than plain cold water. He was going to die by drowning in a river. 

There was a moment of astonishment at this realization, for he'd always assumed that he'd choose the moment of his death, that he'd be allowed some small space for a decision. Some moment of reckoning. Maybe it'd be a worthy sacrifice; possibly even with enough time for a little speech. But there was no choice here, no decision, and certainly no melodramatic speech — there was nothing but helplessly waiting for the next rapid, until some random turn of the river would plunge him into one last, short struggle of panicky blind choking and relentless cold. No magic weapon would help him here, no incantation, no brave free-will moment, no gutsy speech or clever move. The river had him, the river was stronger, and the river would win.

He thought of Sam, left alone. 

Well... Not exactly. Sam had Eileen now. It had already become clear to Dean how that was going to go; the two of them had already been spending a lot of time together in the bunker. They had a rapport. They'd both been through Hell; they understood each other. They'd clearly bonded. 

Sam wouldn't be alone any more. Sam would be okay.

Then Dean thought of Cas _._

Cas was going to end up alone.

No; that wasn't quite right; Cas had _already_ ended up alone. Dean had made sure of that.

 _Cas —_ he thought. But what would he even say to Cas, if he could say anything? "I'm sorry" wasn't quite going to cut it, was it?

A roaring sound downstream was getting louder; more rapids.

But this time the roaring was deeper. Throatier. Louder. At that point Dean remembered that this river had a waterfall. He and Sam had actually seen it from the road. It had looked fairly impressive, and very tall. And he remembered, too, that several victims had died going over the waterfall, and that some bodies had never been recovered at all.

 _No,_ he thought then. _I'm not done here. I'm not done._ It was not acceptable to be swept to his death here; that wasn’t acceptable at all. He was not ready to die yet, for something was left undone. Dean began swimming again. Clumsily, and slowly, but he was swimming. He swam toward the shore with all his might, summoning up every last spark of effort. In the end it wasn't enough to get him to shore, but a lucky surge in the water seemed to be steering him fairly close to a dark shape that was sticking a few inches above water. A boulder. Dean redoubled his efforts, summoning one more exhausted stroke from his aching arms, and another, and he managed to get himself into a patch of current that was headed straight for the boulder. It worked a little too well: the water slammed him directly into it, tremendously hard, and he felt something crack inside him.

The blow knocked the breath out of him all over again, and the water would have swept him right past it, but he managed to get one arm over the boulder and wedge one knee into a crevice below. With that thin tendril of purchase, at last he was at a stop. 

He hung there gasping, trying to ignore the vicious stab of pain in his right side. He was at last stationary, and that was good; but he was still in the water, and that was bad; and the pain in his side was far too intense, and that was also bad. _Catch your breath,_ he ordered himself. _Catch your breath and calm down. This isn't so bad after all. You managed to stop. You just gotta get to shore now._ He forced himself to assess his position: he was hanging onto the upstream side of the boulder with his left arm, while his right arm curled protectively around his ribs. His left knee was wedged into a little crevice underwater; the other leg was floating free, the current yanking it at now and then, but that was as stable as he seemed able to get for the moment. He didn't have nearly enough energy left to haul himself up, but at least he was able to hang on. Blinking water (or blood?) out of his eyes, he peered around while he tried to regroup. 

For maybe fifty yards ahead the moon-dappled river spread down below him in a series of those strange standing-waves, each one shining like polished silk. There were five or six of those silvery hummocks, and beyond that the river dropped completely out of sight. That was where the deep roaring sound was coming from. Those were the falls, surely.

For several long moments he simply clung there, staring downstream and trying to come up with a plan. Taking careful shallow breaths to keep the pain in his ribs down, he glanced at both of the dark shores in turn, hoping to spot some handy fallen trees or maybe a series of rocks that might bridge the gap to shore, or even just a little beach area where he might have some hope of crawling to a landing. But both shores seemed to be nothing but slick sections of steep rock maybe ten feet high. He eyed the nearer rock-face, to his left: it wasn't actually all that far away, but he was separated from it by a stretch of deadly fast-moving black water maybe four or five feet across. 

He didn't have a hope of crossing that nasty-looking current. Even if he somehow did, there was nothing to grab on to on the slick-rock cliff. He'd be swept right over the falls in a heartbeat.

He looked downstream again, near despair. It was full night now, and the calm silver moon was now rising over the waterfall ahead. It seemed serenely beautiful, far too lovely for a death scene, and Dean was suddenly aching with regret. Still clinging to the boulder, he looked up at the trees at the top of the rock cliff. They were really only about twelve feet away but it might as well have been a mile. Dean was furious at himself, then, for everything. He thought: _I...screwed...up._

_I..._

_...really..._

_...screwed..._

_...up._

_..._ and he gradually realized that his thoughts were forming much more slowly now. The water was in fact quite chilly, and he'd been in the river for some time, and by now the cold had stolen deep into his bones. His whole body felt sluggish, and he slowly became aware that his teeth were chattering, and had been chattering for a while — the whole time that he'd been looking blankly at the river. But he could still put a few thoughts together, and the main thought in his head now was simply: _Not done here. Not done. I've left things undone_ , and it wasn't about Sam, was it; Sam would be okay now; it was about something else; it was about Cas, wasn't it; it was about Cas walking away with that glitter in his eyes.

Things could not end here. Something was broken, something was undone, something needed fixing, and Dean could not yet allow himself to die. _Not done here_ , Dean thought. His position on the boulder slipped, the water tugging at him again, but now Dean began to fight.

He fought to get his other arm up around the boulder. He fought to get his left leg loose; it had originally been wedged in what seemed a helpfully stable position, but now his knee seemed to be jammed. But at last his knee came loose and he managed to thrash free, and then, somehow, slowly, awkwardly, inch by inch, over what seemed like hours, he hauled himself up on the boulder. 

The boulder was only maybe four feet by three, sticking only a few inches out of the surging waves. This wasn't really very big at all, and it was so mossy and damp and slick and cold that it didn't really feel that much better than being in the river. On the left side of the boulder was the fast-moving black current, which still looked vicious and treacherous and utterly impossible to cross. Beyond that was the little rock cliff, with nothing to grab and no way to get out of the water. And above the cliff were the trees, and the moon, and the stars, infinitely far. 

_Not done here. Not done here. Got to keep fighting. One thing at a time. Catch your breath._ Dean lay curled on his side, one chilled hand groping the damp moss for a better hand-hold, while he tried to find a way to get a full breath of air past the stabbing pain in his right side. 

He stayed quite a long while huddled there on the boulder, looking up at the stars, which began winking out of view one by one as a dark bank of night-time clouds began to creep over the sky. The clouds seemed ominous, and as Dean lay there shuddering with cold, he knew his time was running out. He was injured, and he was weakened, and he was still in a very bad position. Sam would no doubt be searching for him, but Dean wouldn't survive the night here. If the water didn't get him, the cold soon would.

There was one thing left to try: He could pray.

His rule for weeks now had been to never pray to Cas, not even when things looked their very worst. Praying was utterly pointless, for multiple reasons, which Dean periodically reviewed whenever he was strongly tempted to pray (which usually meant, just about every other day). First off, Cas probably couldn't even hear — he'd said his "powers were failing", and presumably that meant he wouldn't hear prayers. Second, even if Cas could hear prayers, he had no wings, and couldn't fly, so he'd never be able to zip to Dean's aid fast enough to help with whatever the problem was. Third, even if he could fly he would have no idea where Dean actually was, anyway. And fourth — 

Well, there were lots of reasons.

... fourth, it also seemed doubtful now that Cas would even want to help. 

There was no other choice. Maybe at least Dean could send one last message.

Dean closed his eyes, bowed his head and rested his forehead on the back of one hand. He tried to still his mind. He gathered his thoughts, and he prayed:

_Cas, wherever you are, if you can hear me—_

"Stop that," growled a familiar voice from the trees above the rocky cliff. "You're distracting me. You've been praying almost the whole time anyway, you know. Do you think you can catch a rope?"

* * *

_A/N - I hope to have the next chapter up tomorrow but it's a heavy work day tomorrow - I'm in my last week in Brazil and have been asked to help with a big complicated thing tomorrow that may go late into the night. And also I'm still a little sick! So I might miss a day - apologies if I do. Something will be up by Thanksgiving, if not before._

_Please leave me a comment if you have a moment! I love to hear from you!_


	6. Trust

_A/N - Brutally long work day today, and it's late at night now, but here's at least a short chapter for you all._

* * *

Dean peered upwards to the top of the rock wall. A dark form was moving around, at first just another shadow among the shadows of the trees. It was doing something, wrestling with some kind of skinny flexible object. The dark form moved into the moonlight, and it was Castiel, and he was holding a rope.

"I just arrived," he called. He was about twelve feet above Dean, and had to almost shout to make himself heard above the river. He sounded out of breath (which seemed rather un-angel-like) as he added, "I've been running. There was a path some of the way but the last mile was rough. I brought a rope from my car." Dean gazed at him bewildered. Cas seemed to be studying the river; he even brought out his cell phone and switched on its flashlight. He beamed the light around upstream, and across the river, examining the other shore; he shone it at Dean for several long moments, and then he shone it downstream toward the falls. 

"We need to avoid you going over the falls," called Cas.

"No... shit," wheezed Dean.

Even from this distance, even in the faint moonlight, it turned out it was still possible to detect Cas rolling his eyes.

"Are you hurt?" called Cas, as he turned his phone off and stuck it in one pocket.

"I'm... fine," wheezed Dean.

"I doubt that," said Cas drily. "But I'll take that to mean that at least you have no serious injuries?" 

Dean said, as loudly as he could, "Think... I broke... some ribs," hoping to at least be honest.

"That's not good," said Cas. (Dean, with an effort, managed to avoid saying _No shit_ again.) Cas paused as if thinking about something. Finally he said, "I'm afraid this will hurt, then, but I don't see any other way. Sometimes I _really_ wish I could still fly—" 

"Call... Sam," suggested Dean, with a wheeze.

Cas shook his head. "No cell service. I haven't had cell service all day, actually. The battery's about to die anyway, so I'm afraid it's me or nothing. Unless you want to wait another four hours for me to hike up to that town and lead Sam back here, but from the state of your prayers I think you're far too chilled to wait that long. The air temperature's dropping; we need to get you onto shore, now. Here, can you catch this?" 

Something sinuous arced through the darkness toward Dean. Dean stared at it dully, only recognizing it as the end of a rope when it splashed into the water just in front of him. The water whisked the end of the rope away, but apparently Cas had tied off the other end, for he reeled it back in, clearly preparing to try again.

How was Cas here, how did he have a rope, how had he even been near this town, and how had he figured out exactly where to find Dean? Apparently he could still hear prayers, but how —

"The idea is to _catch it_ , Dean," said Cas, rather sharply, for there'd already been a second try while Dean had been lost in thought. Now Cas was reeling his rope in for a third try, and there was worry in his voice. "Can you lift your arm?" he called to Dean. "Your left arm? To catch the rope? I mean, without falling off the rock? DEAN, come on, _listen to me_ , _focus—_ " 

Such a familiar tone of voice, that mix of concern and fatalism and pragmatic action — even the slight edge of annoyance was familiar.

 _"Please_ try to catch it this time, Dean."

It took a few more tries, but at last Dean got hold of the end of the rope. It turned out that Cas had tied a neat loop in the end of the rope, a loop designed to go around Dean's chest, but with the broken ribs this was going to be problematic. Dean's shivering was increasingly strong; his hands were moving very clumsily, and Cas's instructions were sounding increasingly worried. And then Dean hesitated when he was about to get the loop of rope over his head. He looked back up toward shore. How was Cas even _here?_ How had he known to come here? What the hell was happening?

_Can I trust him? Can I trust him? Can I—_

"We don't have time for this, Dean," called Cas. He was now kneeling on all fours at the edge of the little cliff, as if hoping this would get him closer to Dean. He said, enunciating slowly and clearly, "Please don't make it end here."

Dean blinked up at him.

Cas said, "Quite selfishly, I don't want to have to go on for eons remembering, every day, that a man who was once my dearest friend froze to death on a rock in a river because he didn't trust me to hold the other end of a rope."

 _Once_ _my_ _dearest friend_. 

Dean gazed up at him mutely. 

Cas added, "You'll have to get the rope on. And it will hurt; I'm sorry about your ribs. But I will get you out of the water, I swear, and I will try my best to heal your ribs, I swear that too. Can you trust me that far?"

Dean finally managed a nod.

Slowly, painfully, he got the loop over one shoulder, and then around the other. The move made his ribs stab with pain, but he got the rope into position, and forced himself to give Cas a thumbs-up sign. Cas moved around, doing something with the rope; he'd already anchored it somehow to a tree and now he took up the slack. Dean felt the rope tighten, and winced. This was, indeed, going to hurt. 

"Go into the water," said Cas. "Once you're in, I'll pull you across."

 _Trust him_ , thought Dean. _Trust him_. Yet there was a moment when Dean simply could not make himself go back into the black water, gazing at the rushing current with dread. _Trust him_ , Dean chanted to himself. _Trust him_. 

"Dean?" called Cas eventually. This time his voice was much quieter; this time he sounded like he was losing heart.

Dean pushed himself off the boulder.

He'd tried to go in gradually, but of course the current grabbed him at once and whisked him in a flash several yards down the bank. The rope whipped taut, biting hard around Dean's broken ribs, and the pain would have made him scream if he had been able to draw even a single breath. He fetched up with a slam against the little rocky cliff, the rough current pulling his body almost horizontal in the water. It took every ounce of focus to keep his mouth above water, and through it all the lasso of pain around his chest was searing, white-hot, so dazzling that Dean couldn't seem to do anything else at all. He couldn't lift an arm to the rock wall, he couldn't move his feet, he certainly couldn't climb. In fact he couldn't even breathe. All he could do was hang there in the chilly water, pummeled by the relentless current, waiting out the agony — and hoping, hoping against hope, that he'd made the right decision. 

Slowly he began to rise out of the water. 

As if by magic he rose, the white-hot searing circle of pain tightening brutally. Slowly he was dragged upward along the rock wall, until he was entirely out of the water, hanging heavy in the rope, choking and drenched. Up he went, higher and higher. A strong hand gripped his arm. _I'm the one who gripped you tight_ , thought Dean in a daze, as a dark shape materialized just a foot above him, a familiar form in a familiar coat, kneeling at the edge of the cliff and reeling Dean in like a fish. Castiel. Cas had one hand now on the loop of rope around Dean's chest, and his other arm snaked between Dean's legs. Cas gave a mighty heave and dragged Dean, totally drenched, over the edge of the rock wall. They fell back together to a cold mat of pine needles.

* * *

_A/N - Sorry for the shortness, best I can do tonight. More tomorrow!_


	7. This Is About Thermoregulation

_A/N - Been a strange Thanksgiving - the friend who was going to host me was rushed to the hospital, the meal was cancelled, and I have spent most of the day desperately worried & unable to find out whatever had happened. I am very thankful indeed to report that my friend seems to be ok, and I should be able to see him tomorrow, but it's been a weird day. Anyway, here is another shortish chapter for you all; hope you enjoy it, and I hope that wherever you are, that you are comfortable and loved and have things to be grateful for._

* * *

They landed sprawling, Dean next to Cas in a messy dripping heap, the rope looping in loose wet curls around them both. Cas scrambled up, and in the next instant he was loosening the rope from around Dean's side. But even once the rope was off the pain continued; it was all Dean could think about, as he curled helplessly on his side, his breathing limited to tiny, panting gasps. 

"Can you speak?" said Cas, leaning very close now, crouched on hands and knees beside Dean. But no, Dean couldn't speak at all. Something was wrong; something was terribly wrong, something had been cripplingly damaged, and Dean was certain he was dying. He groped at Cas, grabbing weakly at the trenchcoat with one hand. Cas's expression darkened and he moved fast then, shoving Dean's sodden flannel shirt and undershirt up in one quick move while Dean gasped helplessly. In an instant Cas had zeroed on the problem spot, laying a palm flat on Dean's side. Dean was near to passing out by now, the world whirling around him, the stars and the moon going dark. 

"Your lung's collapsed," he heard Cas say, and then there was a wash of warmth and light at Dean's side. The pain backed off a notch, and the suffocating feeling eased as air rushed back into Dean's lungs.

Dean opened his eyes, to see Cas still crouched over him, eyes closed. He had a palm flat to Dean's side, and a pale wisp of golden light flickered out from Cas's hand. 

But something was not going quite right. Cas's magical healings were usually instantaneous, the glow from his hand strong and golden, but this was taking some time. Cas's golden light seemed weak and pale, flickering on and off, fading too soon. Soon it had died entirely, yet the pain was not gone. Cas opened his eyes and took a very uneven breath. He glanced down at Dean. For a long moment their eyes met. Dean frowned up at him, confused.

"Sorry," muttered Cas, dropping his gaze. "Your lung's fixed, but I couldn't do the ribs. I'll try again."

He repositioned his hand, closed his eyes again and frowned in concentration.

A second glow of pale amber light seeped out from under his hand, even weaker than the first. But this time it seemed to be just enough, for the pain in Dean's ribs faded, and faded further, and then the pain was gone.

Dean took a tentative breath.

There was always a moment of confusion after one of Cas's healings. One moment the pain would be utterly blinding, death hovering inches away; the next, everything was fine, the pain gone, the world returned to itself. Dean patted his side and took another experimental breath, this one deeper. Nothing hurt. He still felt numb with cold, for his clothes were still drenched with icy water, and Dean couldn't seem to stop shivering, but _he could breathe again_ and that was certainly an improvement. He looked at Cas, who wasn't actually looking in perfect condition either; he was now crouching on his hands and knees by Dean's side, head hanging, eyes closed.

For a long moment Dean lay curled on the pine needles and just stared up at him, shivering, trying to take it in. It seemed impossible to be out of the river at last, to have cheated death again after that terrifying journey through the rapids. It seemed impossible to have been healed so magically. But surely the most impossible thing of all was for Castiel to _even be_ _here_. How could he possibly have gotten here so fast? Yet here he was, after two months of total mysterious absence. Same outfit as ever, of course; that eternal trenchcoat, the dark suit, the blue tie dangling down. But his face, _his face_ ; Dean felt more than a little mesmerized just at the sight of Cas, who was half in shadow, a moonbeam illuminating him from the side. He looked tired and worn, but it was Cas, back in Dean's life once again.

Cas gave a quiet sigh and opened his eyes. He pushed himself up to his knees, reached out one hand and rested it lightly on Dean's chest, and this time he nodded in apparent satisfaction. 

"Your right lung had collapsed, and three ribs were broken," Cas said, all business. "The lung is fully repaired. I believe now I've healed all three ribs fairly well too, but I'd advise taking it easy. My power is... well, it's very low now, unfortunately." He glanced around at the dark woods, and looked back at Dean, whose shivering was getting even worse. "Which also means, I'm afraid I don't have enough power to warm you up — not fully anyway, and certainly not if I'm also to stay functional myself, and I think you'll need my help to get out of here. You're quite chilled; we have to get you moving. Can you stand?" 

Dean nodded, but it turned out he was utterly unable to get his feet under him at first. Cas had to help, grabbing Dean's upper arm by one hand and hauling Dean to his feet. "That's good," said Cas, once Dean was on his feet, wavering. "That's good. Can you walk?"

"How d-did you f-find me?" said Dean. His voice came out in a croak, and his teeth were chattering again. Cas was already tugging him along, glancing at the moon now and then as if to get his bearings, as Dean said, "You were h-here before I started praying."

"You're very easy to locate," Cas said. "Come on, Dean, _walk_ , you're far too cold—"

"W-what do you mean, easy to l-locate?" insisted Dean. "Why w-were you even _here?_ In, in Or-Oregon?"

Cas finally spared him a glance. "Longing," he said, as if this explained everything. Dean could only give him a baffled look. A faint smile twitched at one corner of Cas's mouth, and he looked away, still trying to coax Dean forward. 

"I can feel you from a long way away," Cas said at last. "Even now. Actually, stronger now. And I've been..." He sighed. "I'll confess I've been deliberately staying close. In case you or Sam need me. I suppose after that last phone call, I've been feeling a little worried about you both. So, I was nearby, as general policy — it's fairly easy to stay nearby, you know, I just follow the, um, the longing —and then I heard your first few prayers. So once I realized you were in trouble, from the prayers I mean, I just homed in on you, via the longing again. It can lead me directly to a person's current position if the... if the feeling is strong enough." He glanced at Dean. "Sorry I couldn't get here any faster. I was at an overlook nearby, on the road, when I realized you were falling. I got a few images from you of rough water and realized you must be in the river, so I drove as close to the river as I could, and grabbed the rope from my trunk — don't look so _skeptical_ , you two always have a rope in your trunk, and innumerable other tools that I also now use — do you think I've learned absolutely nothing? The images I got from your prayers made it _very_ clear that you were in a river and that we would need a rope. So I grabbed my rope, and I ran. I may not be able to fly, but so long as I still have power I can run pretty well, even at night." He then added, "I was able to do a small discussion with the local river elemental along the way. She wasn't really all that cooperative, but I think I managed to convince her to at least let you try to swim. Do you think that helped?"

"Um," Dean said, totally confused. "M-maybe?"

"Good," said Cas. He then added with a worried tone, as he frog-marched Dean through the chilly night, "Now we have to find shelter."

"We j-just have to g-get back to the r-road—" Dean said, or tried to say. But he was shuddering so badly now, his teeth chattering so much, that he could barely get the words out. Puffs of frozen breath vapor wafted into the night with each stuttered word.

"We're miles from the road," said Cas darkly. "The river carried you quite a long way. We're well into the forest, and I'm almost out of power now. Fixing your ribs took almost everything I have left."

"Then we g-gotta... um...." What exactly were they going to do? Dean felt so cold he could barely think. He stared blankly at another small cloud of breath vapor that he'd just exhaled. Was it really getting that cold?

Cas seemed to be looking at the cloud of breath vapor too.

"G-ghost?" murmured Dean, looking around.

"No," said Cas. "It's not a ghost. It's just night-time in the mountains. In late November." He came to halt, and jerked Dean to a halt too. "Strip off your clothes," said Cas, decisively, looking at him.

"I-- W-what?" Dean said, confused.

Cas began shucking off his trenchcoat. He draped it neatly over a nearby branch and glanced again at Dean.

"Take your shirt off," said Cas. "The flannel shirt, and I think the undershirt too. And your jeans." 

For a very confused moment Dean thought _Now? Here? Under the trees, in the night?_ Then he realized what this was about. This was all business, wasn't it. It was just about getting Dean's wet clothes off. 

Dean obeyed, stripping in the dark woods. Or rather, he tried to strip. His jeans, undershirt and flannel shirt were all frigid and soaking, like layers of abrasive wet ice on his skin, and the buttonholes now seemed stiff and unyielding. Between his increasingly strong shivering and his numb fingers, he couldn't even un-button the very first button on the flannel shirt.

Cas, meanwhile, was now shaking off his dark suit-jacket. Dean watched him blankly as Cas carefully un-tied his blue tie as well. Cas seemed to notice, then, that Dean was fumbling uselessly with the buttons. Cas's lips tightened; he set his blue tie over a nearby branch, took two steps over to Dean and began neatly unbuttoning all the buttons of Dean's flannel shirt. 

He did one button at a time, fingers deft and sure, starting at the top. 

By the second button, Dean decided he'd better make a joke. But Cas un-buttoned the third button, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth, and Dean still could not think of anything to say. Instead Dean watched Cas's hands working deftly, button by button, and Dean was utterly transfixed.

Cas got to the last button. He unbuttoned it. He lowered his hands to Dean's belt.

Dean had finally managed to think of a joke. It was going to be: "We've gotta stop meeting like this."

"We, uh," said Dean, and his voice wavered and stopped.

Castiel hesitated as soon as Dean spoke, his fingers pausing on Dean's belt, the belt-buckle almost undone. He paused there for a long moment, still as a statue.

There was a moment of intense silence. Neither Cas nor Dean made a single sound.

Eventually Cas continued, without a word, carefully working the belt buckle loose until the belt came free from around Dean's waist.

Then Cas un-buttoned the metal button at the top of Dean's jeans.

He un-zipped Dean's fly, his fingers delicate and gentle and sure. 

"We," said Dean, trying again, and this time his voice came out in only a whisper, and he couldn't even get to the second word.

"It's going to get very cold tonight," said Cas, his voice as quiet as Dean's. He eased Dean's jeans partway down Dean's hips. Dean let him do so, utterly tongue-tied, shaking with cold. There was no hint of arousal; the cold was far too intense, and the mood far too confusing. In fact it was all so completely un-arousing that it should have been easy to crack the joke, many jokes in fact, but no jokes would come now at all, and Dean stood bewildered, shaking, as Castiel very gently took Dean by the shoulders and said "Back up two steps.”

Dean backed up two steps, wavering and wobbly; it was helpful to have Cas's hands bracing him on the shoulders. Cas's eyes flicked briefly to Dean's face; there was a tightness around Cas's jaw, and something grim and sad in his eyes. But all Cas said was "Sit." 

Dean sat, only now noticing that there was in fact something to sit on; Cas had maneuvered him to a fallen log. Dean sat mutely on the log, and he let Cas pull the flannel shirt off, and then the undershirt, Dean lifting his arms when instructed, as meekly as a little boy. He watched as Cas knelt at Dean's feet and pulled off both of Dean's drenched socks, and then one leg of the sodden jeans, and then the other, leaving Dean clad in just a damp pair of boxers.

As Cas pulled the jeans off, he said, his voice very even, "This is about thermoregulation. As the only dry clothes for miles around happen to be mine, you're going to wear some of my clothes. You're a few inches taller than my vessel, with correspondingly larger clothes sizes, and I calculate that my shoes and pants won't fit you at all, and not the dress shirt either — those are all rather closely fitted. So I'll have to keep those. But I think you can at least wear my jacket and my coat. This will leave you with no pants, I'm afraid, but wet denim retains a great deal of water, and can cause so much conductive heat loss, that I think bare legs are better than wet denim. Do you concur?" His eyes flicked very briefly to Dean's face.

Dean managed a jerky nod.

_This about thermoregulation._

"I think you should put my socks on as well," Cas went on. "You need something on your feet. My shoes won't fit you, as I said, but I'll stuff some dry pine needles into my socks, and you can wear those; the pine needles should help provide a little more of an insulative barrier."

 _An insulative barrier_ , Dean repeated to himself. _This is about thermoregulation. This is about thermoregulation._ It was completely unnerving to find himself perilously close to tears. His breathing was even getting unsteady, his breath hitching a little through his shivering. Again Cas hesitated very briefly, when one of these uneven breaths became audible; again he seemed to almost freeze in place for a moment. But other than that he seemed to take no notice of Dean's confusion. A few moments later the jeans were off and now Cas was actually wiping Dean's bare legs down briskly with several handfuls of dry pine needles, with apparently no more emotion than if he'd been wiping down a wet dog. _I should probably ditch the boxers too,_ Dean thought, but this seemed altogether too dangerous a thought, and in the end Dean simply let Cas pat the boxers more-or-less dry with more handfuls of the dry pine needles. Castiel did not look at Dean at all during this boxer-drying process; in fact he was working with perfectly calm efficiency, his expression now a mask of calm, no emotion visible at all. (His touch, however, was extraordinarily gentle, as if Dean could be bruised by even the lightest of contact.)

 _This is_ _about_ _thermoregulation_. Still crouching at Dean's feet, Cas now took off his own shoes and socks off. He stuffed each of his socks meticulously with more of the dry pine needles, and worked the socks onto Dean's feet. (Sure enough Cas’s shoes wouldn't fit, so Cas put those back on his own feet, sockless.) Finally Cas hauled Dean back to his feet and got him into the suitjacket, and then the trenchcoat, moving around him to get the sleeves on, doing up the buttons of both garments, and finally knotting the trenchcoat's belt in front. 

Dean stood shuddering with cold through all this, even swaying on his feet a little as the suitjacket and trenchcoat were put on. But every time Cas moved behind him Dean found himself trying to twist around to keep him in sight. And every time Cas came in front, Dean's gaze was instantly riveted to his face, helpless to look away. 

Except, that is, for the very brief moments when Cas glanced directly at him. At those moments, which were rare and fleeting, Dean's eyes immediately dropped to the ground.

"Best we can do, I think," muttered Cas at the end, once Dean was bundled up in the dark suitjacket and the trenchcoat, the trenchcoat's belt tied around Dean's waist. The whole process, as confusing as it had felt, had only taken a few minutes; Cas had been quite efficient, and Dean actually felt much better now that he had a couple of dry layers. He was still shivering, but not as badly. Cas added, "I hate that you have to have bare legs, but as I said, it's better than wearing wet denim." He picked up one last item from a nearby branch — the blue tie — and wound it carefully around Dean's neck, twice. "This might work as a scarf," Cas said. "I'm hoping every little bit will help. Altogether, I estimate this should buy us about twenty more minutes of locomotory ability on your part. You'll still feel cold, but hopefully you'll keep moving for a bit longer." He tucked the ends of the tie in carefully and pulled the collar of the trenchcoat up around Dean's neck, and Dean, shivering, had to close his eyes and swallow, carefully.

"Dean—" Cas said quietly.

"I, I just, Cas, I, uh--" Dean tried to say, but his teeth were still chattering a little, and he couldn't seem to arrange his thoughts into an actual sentence anyway.

"I was just going to say," Cas went on smoothly, "that unfortunately I don't even have enough power left to dry off these wet clothes of yours." As he spoke he leaned down to pick up the jeans and the flannel shirt, squeezing the water out of both and then looping them across one arm. He stuffed Dean's damp socks into a pocket of the jeans. "But I'll bring them along in case they dry off enough later to be of some use to you again. I wish I could do more. Heat transfer is so very energy-intensive, and I have only the barest speck of power left. If I drain my power down fully I fear I may not be of any use to you at all."

"S'okay," whispered Dean.

"We still have a long way to go. Come on." Cas put a hand on Dean's elbow and tugged him forward.

The outfit was absurd, the trenchcoat not even coming to Dean's bare knees, but Dean found he was, indeed, a bit warmer than before. The clothing change had been a good idea. He could even walk a little better, shuffling forward in his pine-needle-stuffed socks. They made a clumsy sort of moccasin, but Dean could actually feel his toes again.

"W-which way t-to town?" said Dean.

"The town is too far for us to reach tonight," Cas said. "But I spotted a cabin on my way in, when I was running downstream after you. It had no sign of current habitation — I believe it's a seasonal vacation cabin that has been closed up for the winter — but with any luck we could shelter there. I think I can get us back to it. It's just a couple miles, I believe. This way."

With that he tugged at Dean's arm more strongly, pulling him into a somewhat faster shuffle, and together they began moving through the moonlight, over carpets of pine needles and through shrubs and over fallen branches, trudging through the woods.

 _Are we not even going to talk about anything?_ Dean thought, looking over at Cas. In one way it was a relief to think maybe they could just never talk about that terrible, awful library conversation ever again. Maybe Cas would just forget it had ever happened. Maybe he'd just move right back into the bunker and never even speak about the way Dean had been treating him; maybe they could both somehow erase that whole night. That whole week. The whole last two months.... the whole year....

"Cas, I—" began Dean, again not even knowing what he wanted to say.

"Save your breath and walk _,"_ ordered Cas.

 _This is about thermoregulation_ , Dean thought again, and they walked on. 

* * *

_A/N -_ _More tomorrow. I hope you all are well and fed and warm. Please leave a comment if you have a moment!_


	8. A Couple Miles

_A/N - I'm into my last 24 hours in Brazil. My friend has recovered astonishingly and we had a delayed Thanksgiving today. The next 24h will be chaos, tons of stuff to do, and I still need to pack. Here's one more chapter for you; then I will pack; I'll try to post one more before I get on the plane._

* * *

"A couple miles" turned out to take a very long time at night, when stumbling through the woods, in the dark, following a long mountain riverbank slowly upstream. The first twenty minutes or so actually went pretty well. The jacket and trenchcoat helped immensely; even bare-legged, Dean felt better than he had when he'd first been dragged out of the river. Cas stayed at Dean's side, one hand always lightly on Dean's elbow, but for a while Dean no longer really needed the support.

Neither spoke for some time. Dean found he had to focus intently on moving. He also felt a little out of breath, doubtless due to the high elevation, not to mention the fact that the ground kept sloping upward. Cas, too, seemed a little out of breath (which seemed odd), and he limited himself to some quietly whispered instructions: "Log here," "This way," "Watch the branch." Twigs and leaves crackled sharply underfoot as they walked, and the burbling of the river was always audible not far away.

But the night wore on, and the temperature kept dropping. And, even with the hiking, Dean never fully stopped shivering. Eventually he realized he was stumbling a little whenever he came to a patch of uneven ground. At first he thought it was just lack of light; the ever-present gray clouds of Oregon had closed over the moon by now, and they were now navigating mostly by the little light from Cas's phone (which still had no cell service, and was getting very low on battery). Even with the light, Dean's stumbling grew steadily worse. Cas's hand tightened on Dean's arm as the stumbling and shivering both worsened. Soon Dean's hands and feet were aching ferociously with pain from the cold. The air seemed to get colder, and colder. 

To top things off, a fine snow began to fall, soft flakes drifting down out of the sky. November in the mountains was like January anywhere else, Dean remembered: snow could come at any time. "Just what we need," Dean tried to joke, but he could barely even form any words by now, and it came out in a mumble. Soon Dean began to weave a bit, periodically losing his balance. He found he was tripping now and then, Cas yanking him back upright every time. Then he tripped so badly he pulled out of Cas's grasp and fell to his knees. 

"Fine," Dean muttered, staggering back to his feet. "I'm fine..."

Cas made no comment, but he moved closer to Dean's left side, slung Dean's left arm over his own shoulder, and took a tight grip around Dean's waist.

Onward they went, together, Cas now very close by Dean's side and half-dragging Dean along. Progress was slow. They were soon moving through a half-inch scattering of dry snow that was slowly accumulating on the ground

"How are your feet?" Cas asked. 

"Can't feel 'em," Dean replied. 

"We have to be close to the cabin," said Cas. His voice dropped, and Dean heard him whisper, "Please be close."

 _He prays to cabins now, instead of to his dad,_ Dean thought. 

The snow began to muffle all sounds, even the rushing of the nearby river. It was getting incredibly cold, deathly cold, but also very beautiful. It occurred to Dean that he should point this out.

"Beau'ful," Dean said, waving vaguely up at the drifting snowflakes, which were falling directly down onto his face. He discovered, then, that he had fallen, and that Cas was trying to get him to stand.

" _Dean_ ," Cas was saying to him, sharply. "You have to stand."

"Glad jr'eer," mumbled Dean. 

"What?"

"Glad you're here," said Dean, trying to enunciate very clearly.

Cas stared at him a moment. He shook his head, with a small smile, and he said, quietly and without rancor, "That's because I'm useful to you right now." He knelt by Dean's side, pulled Dean's arm over his shoulders once again, and started to try to yank Dean to his feet.

" _Not_ what I m-meant," protested Dean, trying to stand. "Not what I meant...." He tried to get his feet under himself, but ended up slumping over sideways in the snow, nearly pulling Cas over with him. The cold was stealing all through him now. Each separate thought seemed to arise in slow motion, unfurling very gradually like a flower blooming. _It's... not... because... you're... useful_ , Dean thought, and maybe he even managed to say it aloud; it was hard to be sure. He'd stopped shivering.

"It's okay," said Cas. He yanked Dean bodily to his feet with a huge pull, and then backed him up against a tree, both hands under Dean's armpits now, manhandling him as firmly and irresistibly as if shoving a horse around. For a moment Cas held Dean pinned against the tree, gazing at him from very close, and now there seemed to be an affection in his face, an affection and also a certain resignation, as he said, "It's okay, Dean. I've realized it's just the way you are. I might as well be angry at this snow for falling. It's snow; that's its nature. It falls. That's what it does. Same with you. It's just the way you are."

"What way?" said Dean, who despite his best efforts was losing track of the conversation. "What way am I?"

But Cas didn't reply. Instead he did a very confusing move, or at least it was confusing to Dean: Cas leaned over and pulled at Dean's leg, simultaneously yanking at Dean's arm, and the world spun and the tree disappeared. Then Dean was hanging across Cas's shoulders. On Cas marched. From Dean's upside-down perspective it now seemed the snow was floating upwards, dots of soft white drifting from the distant sky to the tilted trees, floating ever upwards. _Like when he carried Jack_ , Dean remembered. _Carried my son. His son. Sam's son. Our son. Like when he carried Jack..._ for Cas was so effortless, so strong, so powerful, and of course he could carry Dean like this, for miles and miles through the woods, of course....

* * *

Dean floated off into another world, a world made of nothing but winter. In some moments it was all a haze of intense discomfort and pain, his hands throbbing with the agony of real cold, ribs sore again under the pressure of the strange position. Through his haze, always he heard the steady trudging of Cas's feet in the snow, and the heavy panting of Cas's breathing.

In other moments Dean snapped back to clarity, sometimes long enough to wonder why Cas was panting so hard, in those great rasping breaths. Angels didn't normally need to breathe like that, did they? Did Cas actually need oxygen now? Dean's recently-healed ribs began to ping with pain, and he heard himself give a muffled moan. Cas paused then, and took a very deep breath, and something changed about the shape of Castiel's shoulders. A broader and softer surface somehow appeared, something that was much more comfortable to lie on, and infinitely more warm. Part of this surface was now supporting Dean's head and arms, and it even seemed there were feathers under his hands, most of the feathers burned and broken, but also a new soft layer of growing feathers. They were warm. By instinct he found himself working his icy hands into the new soft feathers, and he felt Cas falter briefly in his walking, with a sharp gasp; a flinch, even. But Cas said nothing, and he soon kept on walking, and for a while the bonechilling pain of the cold seemed to disappear from Dean fingers. 

This only lasted a little while; the broad surface soon chilled, and sagged. A point came when Cas said, his voice rough and hoarse and pained, "I can't maintain it, Dean, I'm sorry," and then they had fallen in the snow together, Cas on his hands and knees, Dean sprawled on top of him. The broad warm surface had disappeared, if it had ever existed at all, and Cas was shaking with exertion, or maybe with something like sobs. 

"I'm sorry, Cas," Dean managed to say, entirely unsure now of where they were or how they had gotten there. The entire adventure in the river had faded to a dream by now and it seemed possible it had never happened at all. Maybe everything had been a dream? Jack, and Mom, and Chuck? Maybe Cas coming back from the Empty had been a dream? With any luck, that library conversation had been a dream too, and Dean had never snapped at Cas, and Cas had never said _You used to trust me_ with such devastating simplicity, and Cas had never had that awful glitter at the corners of his eyes, and he had never walked away. 

"I'm sorry," Dean said again. 

Cas, still on all fours under Dean, let out a bark of a laugh. "You don't even know... what you're... apologizing for," he gasped, between panting breaths. 

"Sorry... anyway," Dean managed to get out, his breath hitching. He lifted his head with great effort, trying to see where they were, and stared around at the trees. "Oh... is this... Purg'tory?" said Dean, "Hey... Cas... did we... ever leave?" Cas again let out a short, rough laugh that sounded almost like a sob. Or perhaps it was a sob that sounded almost like a laugh. After that he didn't respond anymore, even though Dean, delirious and dizzy, kept muttering "sorry... sorry," periodically, as Cas struggled to his feet, and staggered onward in the night, through the cold, bearing his heavy human burden. 

* * *

Dean blinked slowly, his eyelashes almost frozen together. Flashes of sight were coming to him now almost in stop-motion, one vision after another making the briefest of impressions on his half-frozen mind:

A wooden door, closed.

The boards of a small wooden porch, pressed against his cheek.

Cas, some yards away, breathing hard. He was in a white shirt and dark pants, shattering a window, as snowflakes drifted down all around; the bright sound of breaking glass was shocking in the silence. 

A wooden door, opening; and then Dean seemed to be sliding, someone hauling on his hands, a doorway passing around him as he was moved into a dark space. Dark, and cold, and absolutely frigid.

A spark of light; a tiny flame? Cas was holding a match, and the match was the only light in the world, and it lit Cas's face from the side, and he was beautiful. He was beautiful. He was so stunningly beautiful... and he was also swearing under his breath, cursing God quietly, but that was all wrong and must have only been a dream, because angels didn't swear.

There was a candle next, propped on the stones of a dark and empty fireplace, flickering weakly; and wind and snow blowing through a broken window, and Castiel shoving a bookcase against the window to block the wind. Dean watched dully as Cas carried the candle around, a spark of moving light, as he opened empty closets and rummaged through empty cupboards. He pulled something bulky out of a chest, and finally the candle was back on the hearth and Cas was kneeling by Dean, wrapping blankets around him. But the blankets were icy. The air was icy. Everything, everywhere, was icy and frigid, permeated through and through with an infinite deep dark cold, and only the warm touch of Cas's hands brought any relief.

Next Dean blinked his eyes open to find that Cas was calling his name repeatedly. 

"Dean," Cas was saying. "Can you hear me? Dean?" There was urgency in his voice. Dean looked at him.

"Not... just... use-...ful," Dean told him. It took great concentration to form each slow word. "That's... not... why." Why would Cas look so very concerned at such a simple statement? The next images seemed all just fleeting images from dreams, dreams from long ago, memories of dreams. Certainly nothing real. Dean dreamed that he saw Castiel kneeling by his side in a dark and frozen cabin. Cas's eyes were closed, and he had one hand on Dean's bare chest. In the dream a warm golden light was coming from Cas's hand, and a warmth suffused Dean's body, a wonderful warmth, an ecstasy of warmth that drove all the winter away. The golden light streamed from Castiel into Dean, and then stuttered, and faded, and died completely, and Cas gasped, his face paling. The cabin was completely dark again but for the small flickering candle on the hearth, and Cas was slumped by Dean's side, shaking, taking heavy breaths. And though Dean felt glowing with warmth now, his muscles slack with relief, for some reason it was now Castiel who was shivering.

Dean dreamed of the soft blankets being wrapped more tightly around him, the ends of the blankets tucked under his sides and around his feet, and he dreamed of Cas's voice saying, "I'll try to find f-firewood.... I'll... I'll s-start a fire... You n-need a fire." Or was it Castiel? It didn't sound quite like Cas, for Cas did not normally stutter, and Cas's teeth did not normally chatter. _Angels don't get cold_ , Dean thought. _Angels don't shiver._

Two shivering hands, frigid hands, blocks of ice, were now on either side of Dean's face, cradling him in an icy grip. Yet though the touch was deathly cold, it was also tender. "S-stay here in the b-blankets," stuttered the low voice, through chattering teeth. "I'll find f-fire for you. I h-have no m-more heat to give, I've drained all my p-power; but I'll f-find fire." There was a brief, icy touch on Dean's forehead, and then, equally icy, the softest of touches on Dean's lips. It might have been a kiss, except that Cas would never have done such a thing, and besides, no angel would be so cold. _Angels don't get cold...._

The wintry hands left. A fold of blanket was tucked carefully around Dean's neck and head. At last Dean was warm. Beyond exhausted, he curled up in the blankets, and he slept.

* * *

_A/N - More tomorrow from the airport, if I can at all manage it. Thank you for reading. Please leave a comment if you have a moment - I love to hear from you!_


	9. Finding Fire

_A/N - Could not post this chapter last night from the Sao Paulo airport, but now it's Sunday and suddenly I'm back in the USA after a very long redeye from Brazil. I just walked in my front door for the first time in seven weeks, haven't even unpacked, just plugged in the modem so that I could finally post this chapter!_

* * *

Dean awoke some unknown time later. Had hours passed? Minutes? It was as dark and still as a mausoleum. Where was he?

He shifted, looking around, and discovered he was lying on a wooden floor in some sort of cabin, bundled up in several wool blankets. One window was blocked by a piece of furniture. From a second window, a very pale gray glow filtered into the room — the dim, unearthly shine of starlight on snow. There was a faint tinge of wood-smoke in the air, and a tiny gleam of deep orange from a fireplace that was otherwise pitch black. It was completely silent.

 _Cas was here. Cas was here and he left_ , thought Dean. Still lying in the blankets, staring at the little gleam of orange, he tried to remember what had happened. But he was still only half-awake and the details were very fuzzy. After some effort, he managed to remember only a few images from the river, and the rescue.

 _Cas rescued me, brought me here to this cabin, and then he... left? Just left me here?_

For a moment Dean felt oddly crestfallen, almost as if he'd been abandoned. Cas had just... _left?_ Cas had left Dean in the bunker too, a few months ago, hadn't he? — he'd just up and left, back then, he'd just walked away.... (All other details about this event had disappeared; all Dean really remembered now, in his hazy half-awake state, was that he'd felt bereft.) And Cas had left again now _—_

But a clearer memory surfaced: the sound of a stuttering voice saying "I'll find fire." And the touch of very cold hands. 

_Angels don't get cold_ , Dean thought. _Or at least they're not supposed to._ A sharp twist of worry tightened around his heart, and abruptly he came much more awake.

Sitting up, Dean tried to peer around him in the dim light. The top blanket slipped from his shoulders as he moved, and a deep shudder ran through him at the touch of the wintry air. A window behind a bookcase was broken, he now saw, and though the bookcase helped block the worst of the wind, a bitter breeze was still sneaking in. It was absolutely frigid. 

"Cas?" Dean called, looking around. Now he saw that the broken window wasn't the only source of the cold air. There was a door behind him, the front door of the cabin, and it was open too, partly ajar. 

_I'll find fire...._

Dean lurched to his feet. As he did so he discovered that he was no longer wearing his usual clothes, but was clad only in some kind of jacket and a longish garment that was belted loosely around his waist. He patted it, and recognized it at once from the feel of the fabric: Dean was wearing Cas's trenchcoat, and, yes, that was Cas's dark jacket underneath it, too, and now Dean remembered something about having changed out of wet clothes. Cas had swapped clothes with him, Cas had tried to wipe Dean down... Cas had even carried Dean, hadn't he?

The memories resurfaced, one by one. 

Dean looked around, now much more alert. By the faint light from the open door he could now make out a few more details: his sodden jeans and shirt were in a heap off to the side, along with some bedraggled-looking black socks. He reached out to pick up one of the socks and discovered it was wet from snow, and full of damp pine needles. These was the "pine needle moccasins" that Castiel had fashioned for Dean to wear.

Still holding the useless sock, Dean looked at the fireplace. Hadn't it been empty when they'd first arrived in the cabin? It wasn't empty any more. It now contained several logs stacked up in a neat pyramid shape, and the two lowest logs were glowing slightly on their lower sides. That was the source of the faint orange gleam that Dean had spotted when he'd first awoken. Right under the logs was a stub of a candle, along with some thin, papery ashes that were drifting in the cold breeze. Several more logs had been stacked up along the side of the fireplace, along with a few old newspapers and a book of matches. 

Dean set the sock-moccasin down. He knew immediately what had happened: Cas had tried to build a fire. This cabin, like many, had apparently contained some logs of firewood stacked against one wall to dry — to "season" — and Cas had also found a book of matches, probably by the fireplace. Over the years, Dean had experienced more than his share of emergency overnight stays in remote cabins in the woods, and there was almost always a fireplace, and a stack of logs seasoning against one wall, and a book of matches somewhere nearby. But often the cabin-owners didn't bother to stock kindling, since kindling — those critical smaller sticks that got a new fire going — was usually pretty easy to gather from the woods nearby. There had been no kindling stocked here, in this cabin; no small sticks or twigs, not even any split wood — nothing to keep a small fire going until the bigger logs would heat up and catch.

Cas had found logs, and he'd found matches, and he'd tried to set a fire, but the big logs hadn't caught. He'd then tried using newspaper to start the fire, and the little candle too, both of which were good ideas. But on a cold night like tonight, with big unsplit logs, it hadn't been enough.

 _Kindling_ , Dean thought. _He didn't have kindling._

"Cas?" Dean called again, and now the memory of Cas's icy hands came back, and the golden light stuttering and fading. And the chattering of Cas's teeth as he'd whispered, _I'll find fire_.

 _Angels don't get cold_ , thought Dean again. Or rather, full-powered angels didn't get cold. What about an angel who had just used all the last of his power to warm up somebody else? Would that angel end up human? Could the loss of power actually drain the angel's own body heat?

Dean tugged the trenchcoat's belt more tightly around his waist, tottered hurriedly over to the front door and yanked it wide open.

Outside was a peaceful moonlit scene that looked straight out of a Christmas card. The cabin had a little open meadow outside, a roughly cleared yard of sorts, and it was covered with a shining sheet of white snow. Farther away the woods began, dark conifer trees that were each handsomely decorated with neat white snowy blankets on every branch. The snow had stopped falling and the sky had cleared. The world was bathed in silver now: stars speckled the sky, and high above was a perfect white moon.

And there in the snow was a set of dark tracks that went all the way out to the trees, and into the woods; and over there was another set of tracks, a much more wobbly, zig-zag type of tracks, that came partway back; and, as Dean stepped out onto the snowy porch peering around, he finally saw it -- there was Cas at the end of the second set of tracks,halfway back to the cabin, crumpled face-down in the snow. By his silent form was a scattered armload of small sticks and branches: kindling.

"Oh no you don't," hissed Dean, tottering down the wooden steps and hurrying over to him, heedless of the bitter touch of the snow on his own bare feet. "Don't you dare. Absolutely not." He rushed over to Cas and knelt beside him. Cas was motionless, clad only in his white shirt and dark pants. "Absolutely NOT, you _bastard_ ," growled Dean, as he grabbed Cas by one shoulder and a hip, rolling him roughly over. Cas's eyes were closed, his face icily pale, his lips a dark blue in the moonlight. Dean knew he had to move fast; Cas was no doubt running out of time, Dean was running out of time too, and he had to make every second count. He grabbed hold of both of Cas's wrists, stood, and hauled him by brute force toward the steps, dragging him as fast as he could over the snow.

Dean had only taken three steps when he realized how weak he was. He could barely drag Cas at all, and he was already starting to shiver again. _Should've worn a blanket,_ he thought, _s_ _hould've wrapped up —_ but it would cost precious seconds to go back and get a blanket now. He gritted his teeth, and he hauled, and he threw his whole body into it, and he swore, and at last Castiel began to slide over the snow.

At the steps to the cabin's porch Dean had to shift his grip, getting both hands under Cas's arms. It was a struggle to get him up the stairs, for Castiel seemed all long limbs and heavy, heavy weight. Dean had to yank him up one stair at a time, concentrating on each of the four stairs, muttering curses under his breath. There were four stairs, and therefore four curses: " _No_ you don't. You _bastard._ You fucker. Don't you _dare,_ " — and then they were up on the porch, on a level surface again. Dean heard his voice crack then, and then he was saying, "C'mon, please, _please,"_ as he slid Cas over the snow to the door.

Into the cabin they went, and to the nest of blankets by the cold fireplace, Dean still muttering things on every yank to keep his momentum going: "Turnabout is... fair play... right, Cas?... You... dragged ME... and I'll... drag YOU..." — and at last he succeeded in getting Castiel to the hearth. Dean was shivering harder now, his feet tingling, and he desperately wanted to check Cas for a pulse. But: _Fire_ , thought Dean. _Fire, fire, fire_ — it was Cas's only chance, it was Dean's only chance too — _Fire._ Cas had been doing exactly the right thing: they desperately needed kindling.

Which meant Dean now had to go get the kindling. He almost wanted to cry at this realization, but instead he quickly shoved two of the blankets around Cas, and grabbed the third to throw over his own shoulders. Then he forced himself to turn, and leave Cas alone, and stumble back outside in one more freezing foray into the snow.

Out he went, down the icy steps, through the snow, to Cas's scattered little pile of branches. He tottered around, his feet now aching brutally from the snow's icy touch, as he picked up every scrap of Cas's kindling that he could find. He soon found he couldn't hold the kindling and also hold the blanket around his shoulders, so he ended up throwing the blanket on the ground, throwing all the kindling onto it, and bundling it all up, using the blanket as a rough carry-all. It was horrifying how fast the cold was rushing back into him. Within seconds Dean was shuddering with cold, his feet burning with real pain, his hands going numb all over again. But he got the kindling, and he stumbled back into the cabin as fast as he could move.

Back inside, the door closed, Dean tottered over to the fireplace, already feeling so unsteady he could barely maintain his hold on his blanket-bundle of sticks. He knew he hadn't even checked Cas yet, and there was a sickening worry circling around in his head that it might already be too late. Assuming, though, that it wasn't too late, and that Cas was alive (which he _had_ to be, he just _had_ to be) — then Cas needed fire more than he needed his pulse checked. _Fire,_ Dean thought. _Fire, fire, fire, and fast_. 

Dean shook the blanket out by the edge of the fireplace, dumping out all the kindling with a clatter. Then he had to fumble for the matchbook, and somehow manage to get it open, followed by a long, terribly frustrating minute of attempting to strike a match, his numb fingers barely cooperating at all. Eventually one lit. By the match's little light, Dean finally managed to get a clear look at the logs. It turned out that Cas had laid the original logs rather well — his pyramid arrangement of the wood was a good strategy. A quick inspection of the armload of kindling revealed that Cas had also managed to collect a pretty effective mix of small twigs and medium-sized sticks, before he'd fallen victim to the cold himself. Dean hustled to shove the sticks and twigs into place with numb hands, pushing them almost frantically under the big logs. Fortunately, because of the way Cas had arranged the logs, there was room underneath for the kindling, and Dean found himself thinking, _How did he know to get a mix of different-size sticks? How did he know how to stack the logs? Where do angels learn how to build a fire? Is there an angel Cub Scouts chapter?_ Maybe Cas had learned back in the Stone Age? Or maybe in chilly nights in biblical times.

How many millions of other things had Castiel learned, over the years? 

Dean shook his head, trying to focus. Kindling now in place, he crumpled some of the paper, still keenly conscious that he hadn't yet checked Cas over, and aware that his own body temperature was dropping now too. He managed to strike another precious match; the paper caught, and then the small twigs, and then, to Dean's vast relief, the sticks (this was the make-or-break point for a fire). Bright, steady flames were now licking around the lower logs. The flames grew. Dean crawled over to Cas then, and finally he let himself feel for a pulse at Cas's neck, only to discover that his own fingers were so numb now that he couldn't feel anything anyway. 

"I'm just gonna assume you're alive," Dean said to him. "Cause you have to be. You have to be." Cas's white shirt and his dark pants were soaked from the snow. The tables had turned completely now, and now it was Dean who needed to get Cas' wet clothes off. "This is about thermoregulation, dude," Dean said to him, and he almost went into giggles about it, until the worry swept through him again so sharply he almost felt sick. With fumbling hands Dean managed to get Cas's belt undone and the pants off. Cas's cell phone turned out to be in a front pants pocket. Dean had forgotten the phone even existed, and he grabbed at it greedily, but it turned out the battery had completely died. He set it aside. The wet shirt was next; its buttons were beyond him, and at last Dean simply ripped Cas's shirt off, buttons tearing free. He tossed Cas's wet clothes next to his own, managed to roll Cas onto a blanket, and then grabbed the edges of the blanket to slide Cas as close to the fire as he dared.

The fire was actually going pretty well now, and Dean began to feel a little bit hopeful. He took several moments to arrange Castiel on the blanket, placing him on his side, fully naked and facing the flames from just a few feet away. Then Dean, shaking badly now, took off the trenchcoat and jacket, and lay down just behind Cas, clad only in his boxers. Cas was nude, and Dean nearly so; this did not matter. Dean pulled the trenchcoat over them both, and the second blanket, and then the third, leaving a gap in the blankets that faced the fire, so that the warmth from the flames could heat Cas's face and chest directly.

"You angels better like being little spoons," Dean said to him. He moved right up to Cas's back, slid his lower arm under Cas's neck, and wrapped his upper arm around Cas's waist.

Cas seemed a literal block of ice, and Dean gasped with the shock of contact. It was almost painful to press up against him, but Dean did so, and now Dean was shivering so hard he could barely think. The little fire crackled; it was growing, and it looked like one of the big logs had caught; but Dean felt himself fading. It was up to the fire now. Either it would catch, and grow, and warm them both; or it would fade, and die, and both would freeze. Cas had laid the logs well and had collected the kindling; Dean had put the kindling in place, and lit the fire. "W-we did what we c-could," Dean whispered to Castiel, and there was something comforting in the realization that they'd really still been working as a coordinated team, despite the fact that one or the other of them had been unconscious, or nearly so, for the whole evening. Whether separate or together, it seemed they were still a team. _We ran our own race_ , thought Dean. _We made our own moves._ He closed his eyes.

The minutes crawled by. Dean lay there holding an icy Castiel, and shivered, and felt his teeth chattering, and he worried, and at at last he began to drift in and out of consciouness. 

* * *

The glow of the fire was brighter; a radiant warmth was filling the air.

 _With us both shivering so hard you'd think we'd warm up_ , Dean thought. Something about this thought was odd enough that he came blearily awake to discover that Cas was, in fact, shivering. Cas was alive! Dean nearly sobbed with relief. He said, aloud, to Cas, "You're alive, you fucker." Cas did not respond, but Dean clutched him even more tightly, burying his face at the back of Cas's neck, muttering, "You're alive. You're _alive_."

After a little while longer of lying there and shivering together with Cas, Dean managed to raise his head and peer over Cas's shoulder to take stock. The fire was going beautifully now, all three of the biggest logs well-caught and roaring. In fact the fire would soon need more logs. Eventually Dean even had to force himself to crawl out of the blanket-nest in order to add more wood to the flames. He then spent a few moments looking at Castiel, and worrying about the fact that Cas hadn't awoken. He finally decided to roll Cas over to put Cas's still-icy back toward the fire, on the theory that maybe chilled angels needed to be rotated on a regular basis for more even warming. There was also the issue of how far he should be from the flames; Dean wanted Cas close enough to the fire to warm up, but not so close that his skin might actually get blistered. It all took some careful thought, and as Dean was still rather chilled himself and not thinking all that clearly, he had to spend many long moments staring at Castiel, tentatively shifting Cas's arms and feet this way and that, trying to figure out the best way to place him.

Once Cas was finally arranged to Dean's liking, Dean curled up next to him again. This time they'd ended up face-to-face, Cas with his back to the fire, Dean again farther from the flames, with his upper arm looped across Cas's waist. Spooning wouldn't work in this position, but clearly they still needed to be as close as possible, so Dean managed to use one heel to pull Cas's upper leg in between Dean's own two legs. He then maneuvered one arm under Cas's head again, got the other arm over his waist and pulled him close. 

This all might have been a comfortable position, relaxing even, if Dean hadn't still been feeling so confused and worried, and if Castiel hadn't still been so deeply unconscious. But at least Cas was shivering steadily now. So Dean allowed himself to relax a little. The second he relaxed, he plummeted into sleep.

* * *

Dean dozed, and he awoke, and he dozed again, in a series of catnaps that might each have been hours long or mere minutes. It seemed impossible to tell how much time was passing. The night seemed to be endlessly long, the logs always burning alarmingly fast, and though the area right by the fireplace was still warm, the arctic cold always seemed to be hovering very near by, just outside the ring of firelight. Each time Dean awoke he tried to rouse himself to check Cas's back and his face, and Dean called his name, checked the pulse at his neck, felt his fingers and his toes, and tried to re-wrap the blankets around him. Twice more Dean even managed to "rotate" Cas again, rolling him over to turn a different side toward the fire.

Eventually Cas was feeling decidedly warmer. He even stopped shivering. But he still did not awaken, and he did not respond to his name. This was worrying enough that Dean finally sat up again just to watch him for a long moment, disturbed. Was this sort of deep coma some kind of angelic consequence of draining the grace completely? Had this happened to Castiel before? Was Cas fully human again now, just because he'd elected to drain the last of his power to warm up Dean? This was clearly all Dean's fault, there was no doubt about that, but what exactly was happening to Cas now? Why hadn't he awoken?

Dean racked his memory to try to piece together his scattered information about how grace worked, and what happened to angels when it was drained. Why hadn't he ever asked Cas to clarify all this stuff? Was this like that time when Cas had been blown out to sea? Or was it more like the stolen-grace thing? Why exactly had Cas been losing power recently, anyway? What about that time he'd died, when he'd been stabbed, the light pouring from his mouth, just like Jack, wings burned to ash, right in front of Dean, both of them, it had happened to both of them, Cas and then Jack — and now all Dean could think about was Cas skewered right through the chest, falling, dying, those great wingmarks spreading out; and that other time, more recently, with Jack, with poor Jack, and Cas kneeling by Jack's body bereft, what had that done, to see Jack die, to see those wingmarks, _what had that done to Cas?_

What had it done to Dean?

Now all Dean could seem to think about was Cas dead on the ground and Jack dead on the ground and Mom dead on the ground and everyone dead on the ground. He fumbled his way back into the nest of blankets shuddering with cold again, lost in grief and confusion, and he curled up with Cas almost desperately this time, hugging him close.

And then he thought: _Is Chuck writing all this?_

The horrible thought brought him wide awake.

_Is he watching and laughing? Enjoying his popcorn, watching us trade off hypothermia shifts, watching us huddle together, watching us grieve? Does he enjoy it?_

Dean gritted his teeth.

 _We run our own race_ , Dean thought. _We make our own moves._

He lifted a middle finger overhead to the sky. Then he dropped his hand, pulled the blanket over them both, wrapped his arm around Castiel, and let oblivion take them both once again.

* * *

_A/N - I think there are only 2 or 3 chapters left. I'll try to get one up tonight (Sun night) and the final one on Monday or Tuesday. Please leave a comment if you have a minute!_


	10. The Thought

_A/N - 2nd chapter today. We are nearing the end._

* * *

The next time Dean awoke he felt a little clearer-headed. There had been several more Castiel-rotations by this point, and Cas now had his back to the fire again, with Dean farther from the flames, the two lying face to face, still bundled up together in the trenchcoat and the blankets. Cas's head was, as always, pillowed on Dean's lower arm (Dean had kept arranging him this way no matter what position they were in, so that Cas would have at least some sort of a pillow). In the current configuration Cas was more or less at eye level to Dean's chest, so that Cas's head could be tucked under Dean's chin. In theory this was so that Dean could see the fire easily, keeping it always in view, so as to be able to judge whether to add more logs. But really, it just felt logical to lie in this configuration, logical, and effective, and, well, actually...

The truth was it felt nice. Dean could keep both arms around Cas' shoulders in this position, and keep one leg looped over Cas's hips, and somehow it felt good to keep hold of him so securely, arms and legs both wrapped around him. Dean could feel him breathing, and make sure he was warm. And he fit well. He fit.

He just fit.

So this time when Dean awoke he allowed himself a moment to just experience what it was like, to have Cas nestled so close. Even though he was in a coma. It would be different if he were awake. Quite a bit different. Dean lay awake a long time, in fact, just thinking about that, and staring over Cas's head at the fire, watching the flames dancing on the logs, and the shadows constantly shifting on the walls to either side.

It still seemed full night. The windows looked pitch black, with no sign of dawn. Early morning, maybe; there would still be hours to go, and oddly the remaining hours began to seem not a trial to be endured, but something to be savored. The fire crackled; the wind moaned; and Castiel lay quiet in Dean's arms, breathing slowly.

The coma part was still a big concern, of course. Would Cas ever wake? Maybe Sam would think of some way to help? Maybe Sam would know some useful spell. _Sam must be frantic_ , thought Dean then, but there was nothing that could be done about that now. Come morning, if Cas still hadn't awoken, Dean would trudge to the town somehow, and find Sam, and then they'd figure out how to help Cas.

And if Cas _had_ awoken by dawn? What then?

Would he just end up going on his way again? Alone?

What would happen after tonight?

"What am I going to do with you, Cas?" Dean murmured at last. 

He wasn't thinking about the hypothermia right now, or even about Cas's mysterious coma. This time he was thinking about everything else.

"It was never about the damn snake," Dean said aloud, whispering. There was no one to hear, after all, nobody for miles, and Dean was just thinking aloud. "It's not the snake," he said, slowly, as he thought it through. "It was never that. You should've told me, yeah; it felt like kinda the last straw at the time, but... Well. There's a million things we don't tell each other, aren't there?"

Dean lowered his nose to Cas's ruffled dark hair. There seemed still to be a scent of snow and woods hovering about Castiel even now, maybe a hint of woodsmoke as well. And something else; the faintest hint of a wild scent, a scent that seemed to float more strongly into the air whenever Cas's back was to the fire. Almost as if something invisible were being warmed. Dean remembered, now, that strange warm feathery surface that had appeared last night. Had he imagined that?

He tightened his hands slightly on Cas's shoulders, and stroked his fingers gently back and forth along Cas's shoulderblades. Nothing was visible there now, and Cas's shoulders felt perfectly normal — the skin warm now, and soft, the muscles underneath pliable and strong. Yet was there still maybe the faintest hint of something else? A warmth in the air just above Cas's shoulders, a sensation of something... something other, something large, some other set of muscles, maybe. Something... feathery? Cas looked so human, he seemed so human....

He wasn't human.

"The thing is," Dean said, very quietly, his voice still barely above a whisper, "you're the only angel who comes back. The only one." 

He ran through the history in his head one more time, as he'd done many times. As he'd been doing almost obsessively for the last several months. Dean had thought it through a million times over, but this time, for the first time, he spoke it all out loud.

"Humans come back," said Dean, to a sleeping Cas, deep in the quiet night, in a small cabin lost in the woods. "Humans can come back. We always knew that. They can come back as ghosts, demons... resurrections even, coming back from Heaven. There's a bunch of ways it can happen. We, I mean me and Sam, we always knew humans could come back from death. We've known that since we were little kids. But angels...." Dean drew a breath. Thinking back, he had to give a rough laugh. "Angels weren't even supposed to _exist_ , first of all. But then once we learned about you guys — well, dead angels are supposed to _stay dead._ When an angel dies, that's _it_ , big time. The wing marks on the ground are the absolute end. You're the one who told us that, Cas. But... you kept coming back. At first, you know, back in the Apocalypse, the first Apocalypse, we thought it was God just trying to help us, you know? We didn't know God was Chuck, remember? Didn't know he was a frickin' lunatic. Back then we thought Chuck was just a prophet, and we thought God had gone missing eons ago. But every time you got exploded or died or whatever, you came back. A bunch of times."

Dean closed his eyes, casting his mind back to those days, a decade past now. Before they'd known about Chuck. Before they'd known about anything.

Dean went on, eyes closed, speaking softly, "Sam and me figured, well, maybe God is doing the best he can. Maybe he's limited in what he can do, or he's being super cryptic for whatever reason, the ineffable plan or whatever, that frickin' Bigger Picture you kept mentioning. Whatever, we never knew the details obviously, but basically we thought, maybe he's trying to help us. Maybe what he's doing is bringing the one angel back who's decided to help us. Bringing you back _because_ you'd been helping us. But... then... remember, a couple years ago...." Dean's breath paused, and when he next spoke, it came out in a rush. "Cas, I _burned your body_. You _died_. You _died_. Wingmarks and all. It was... it was fucking _rough_ , man, I never really told you, but those, those ash marks, it was..." He couldn't quite finish that sentence, so he left it unfinished and went on. "And I burned your vessel. Couldn't bear the thought of... the thought of... well, of what happened to Jack. To Jack's vessel. Couldn't stand the thought that you might get possessed, your vessel I mean. So we decided to burn it. I cut the wood, I cut it all — Sam was staying with Jack, y'know, so I did it all myself, I worked all day, I wrapped up your body, your, your, your vessel, I got it up there and we lit it, and it was— it was— " His voice faltered; the memory was still strong. "It was fucking _hard_. But, the thing is... you came back even from that! I burned your frickin' vessel, Cas! And there you were in a brand new vessel, somehow, that looked _exactly_ the same! Looked exactly the same, sounded exactly the same, felt exactly the same—" And here Dean tightened his grip on Cas's shoulders, and buried his nose in Cas's hair once again. The breadth of Cas's shoulders felt the same, the feel of his hair... Damn, he even smelled the same.

Not that Dean had ever really had the opportunity to linger with his nose in Cas's hair. But, there'd been a hug now and then, over the years, and even though each hug had only lasted a few short seconds, Dean had noticed a few details. He'd noticed, and he'd remembered. Cas felt a certain way, and he had a certain kind of a scent, something unique, some kind of indescribable tinge of feathers and wildness, and Dean knew that scent by now. He knew it.

He _knew_ it.

He breathed it in now. It was Cas.

"You were exactly the same," Dean went on, whispering again. "And, by then we knew that Chuck could be... well, kind of squirrely, you know, not really the helpful God we'd been picturing before, and see, I just, I, uh..." He took a breath. "At the time I just thought it was Jack who brought you back. But later... it started bugging me a bit. Gradually, but... you were more focused on Jack than on us, and that was... That's cool, it's great, I know what he meant to you, I really do. I _really_ do. But, the whole dad thing was kinda... kinda a new thing for you... It was _different_ , see. And... and I just... I just started to wonder. And every time you hid something from me, every time you kept some damn thing secret, it just started bugging me, because..... See, I started to worry if...." The words finally came out in a rush: "If it was really you?"

Dean paused. He took a deep breath, and tilted his head down, breathing in the scent of Cas's hair yet again. The hair, the face, the voice, this whole vessel — _where had it come from?_ Dean had burned the original vessel! 

_Was this really Castiel?_

It was so much easier to talk, a million times easier, with Cas in a coma, unable to hear. Castiel wasn't hearing any of this, and nobody was around, not even Sam, and that made everything easier. It was possible, here, to finally say it all out loud, to at last hear the words echo in the air, even if nobody would ever hear. 

Slowly, Dean said, "I just wasn't sure. Now and then I would just... I'd wonder. I just wasn't sure. And _now_ , see, now we know even _more_. Now we know it's even worse than I thought. Now we really know the true deal about Chuck. He's been playing us all along. Playing us like a puppet show. Running us through our paces like rats in a maze." 

A familiar aching feeling was stirring in the pit of Dean's stomach. It was rare that he let himself dwell on this, and the reason it was rare was because it hurt so badly to think about. He went on,"You said we run our own race. You said we made our own choices. You said, we're real. But... _are we?_ Are _you_? Cause, see, the thing is, you're _always the spanner in the works_ , Cas. You're the freakin' wild card, the loose cannon, the one that changes things at the last second. You said something always goes wrong... and, I, I, said the wrong thing then, Cas, I was messed up that night, I'm sorry, it really came out wrong. Sometimes things do go wrong, but sometimes things go right. But what I really meant, that night, was: something always goes _different,_ when you're around. It goes _different_. You change things. You change the story. And what I keep thinking is, is it really all just part of Chuck's game?" Dean's voice went much quieter now. 

He hesitated, and then at last he said: "Are _you_ just part of Chuck's game?"

Dean drew a very uneven breath. For a long moment he couldn't even speak, but finally he continued, whispering the words into the dark air. "Are you..." he said, very softly, "I don't know... programmed, I guess? Has Chuck just been pulling your strings all along? Or even... are you taking orders? Are you... maybe... maybe even in on it, are you, are you, are you _in on it with Chuck_ , are you _just acting a part_ , like, like... l-like Lilith?" — and here Dean's voice stuttered, and cracked, for this, of course, was The Thought, the terrible Thought he'd been utterly unable to discuss with Sam. The Thought that Dean barely dared even think, even just to himself; the Thought that had taken hold of Dean a few months ago, and had bitten in deep, and would not let him go, that he could never discuss, with anyone. It was just too horrible to think that Cas might even actually be _consciously, willingly,_ playing along with Chuck. 

But it was possible, wasn't it?

The problem was that it was possible.

"Or maybe you don't even know," Dean finished, almost in despair. "Maybe he's pulling your strings and you don't even know! Maybe he's pulling _my_ strings too, and Sam's; I don't know. Maybe he's in all our heads, all three of us, masterminding every thought. Scripting our thoughts. Giving us ideas. I don't know. But I just keep coming back to, _why are you the only angel who ever comes back_ , and I just can't be sure about you any more." Dean's voice cracked again as he said, despairing now, "And it's _killing_ me, Cas, it is absolutely _killing_ me to doubt you."

There was never going to be a way to tell this to anybody. There was never going to be a solution.

He bent his face to Cas's hair again, with a heavy sigh, and tightened his arms around Cas's shoulders. 

Too late, he realized that something felt different: Cas's breathing had changed. In fact, it had changed some time ago.

Too late, Dean realized that this had all felt very much like a prayer. A long and rather intense prayer. Too late, it occurred to him to wonder if prayers could wake angels. Even, perhaps, unpowered angels.

Cas drew a breath. In a very quiet whisper, his head still tucked close to Dean's chest, he said, "I worry about that too."

* * *

_A/N - Next chapter will post either Monday or Tuesday._

_Please drop a comment if you have a moment! Thanks for reading._


	11. Hammer of God

_I worry about that too._

Dean blinked. 

There was a moment of mental scrambling, as Dean tried to take in the fact that Cas had heard some, or maybe even all, of his whispered thoughts. It also suddenly became very apparent that they were in a ridiculously intimate position. Cas was totally naked, Dean had only his boxers, and Cas was actually nestled against Dean's bare chest, his forehead tucked under Dean's chin. The two were literally wrapped around each other, even their legs still interlaced. Dean felt frozen in place, both arms still around Cas's shoulders. _This is about thermoregulation_ , Cas had said earlier, and, well, it _had_ been about thermoregulation, earlier. But now it seemed to be about something else.

He felt, rather than saw, Cas take a slow breath. 

Cas said, his voice still very quiet, "I told you we were real, yes. But, Dean... after I fully realized how deeply your distrust ran, after I left that day, I thought about it. I kept thinking about it. And I began to see what you might be thinking. Yes, I told you we were real. But now I keep wondering... _what if I'm wrong?_ "

Castiel shifted position a little, withdrawing his leg from between Dean's. Taking the cue (a little reluctantly), Dean un-hooked his own leg from around Cas's hips, and Castiel then shuffled back several inches, as if trying to make a small bit of space between them. They were still quite close, though, Dean still lying on his left side with Cas facing him, and Dean still had his arms loosely around Cas's shoulders, but now Cas could look him in the eyes.

And now, also, Cas could move his own arms (which until now had been curled between them). Castiel lifted one hand and set two fingers on the pulse point at Dean's neck.

Cas kept his fingers on Dean's pulse for a several long moments, his gaze fixed on Dean's eyes. All Dean could do was gaze back at him. Cas still had his head pillowed on Dean's lower arm, folds of blanket around them both, a bit of trenchcoat visible under one of the blankets. Cas's back was to the fire, so his face was shadowed and dark, but Dean could see faint glints in his eyes nonetheless — reflected moonlight from the windows, maybe. It was just enough to make out Cas's expression, as he felt Dean's pulse: very solemn, almost reverent.

Then Cas moved his hand down Dean's neck, slowly. His fingers seemed to trace a line of heat along Dean's skin, and Dean couldn't prevent an audible little intake of breath from the sensation. Cas didn't stop, gliding his fingers all the way down Dean's neck, moving his hand all the way onto Dean's chest, only stopping when his hand was exactly over Dean's heart. There he flattened his hand, fingers spreading.

Cas took a slow breath, now holding his hand flat over Dean's heart. 

_He could kill me right now_ , Dean thought. _If he were Chuck's toy he could just kill me. When he had his powers he could've stopped my heart with a thought. He could even just throttle me. He always could have._

_He never did._

Cas stayed there, his hand over Dean's heart. He'd dropped his gaze; his eyes were now focused right on Dean's chest, as if he were trying to see Dean's actual heart— or, maybe, Dean's soul.

He was silent a long moment, and finally he said, "We angels, we've always been told that human souls cannot be directly controlled by God. I still believe that's true." His eyes flicked back up to Dean's face, studying Dean's expression.

Cas repeated, still holding Dean's eyes, "I still believe that's true. The human soul is inherently free. You have always had free will. I think that's the entire point of Chuck's game. That's exactly why it's interesting for him: your decisions have always been your own, and your moves are your own. But... _what about me?"_ His voice darkened as he said this. He paused then, and broke eye contact, looking at his own hand.

He curled his hand into a fist.

He took a heavy breath. Then Cas took hold of Dean's upper arm and gently maneuvered it around, pulling it off his own shoulders until he could get at Dean's hand. He then took hold of Dean's hand in both his own. Cas's hands turned out to be quite warm now, after the hours in the blankets, and for a long moment Dean just focused on that warmth, on the two warm living hands folded around his own. Cas felt warm now, he felt alive.... he felt real.

Cas steered Dean's hand to his own chest, pressing Dean's fingers flat, until Dean's hand was spread exactly over Cas's heart, in a reversal of their earlier position.

Dean couldn't have spoken now if he'd tried. He lay there silent, and felt Cas's skin. Could he even feel Cas's heartbeat, maybe? Usually it was hard to detect a pulse from any place on the chest — Dean had tried this in the past, in various life-or-death situations, and he knew that human ribs were just too sturdy for this to be a good pulse-detection place. But sometimes, when conditions were right, a faint heartbeat could be felt through the breastbone. Conditions seemed to be right now, for Cas was lying very still, and so was Dean. And soon Dean could feel it. He could feel it, he was sure, a subtle distant pulse under his hand: Cas's heart.

Cas swallowed. One hand was still on Dean's wrist, holding Dean's hand in place. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. "I've always believed I made my own decisions," he said. "When I have an idea, or a thought, it feels genuine. It feels like mine. It feels like my own thoughts; my own mind. _But what if it's not?_ " He took a deep, long breath. "All along, all these years working with you and Sam, I thought I'd attained free will. I thought I'd broken free. That was the whole _point_ , Dean, the point of all my actions, the entire point of rebelling against Heaven in the first place: I thought I'd attained free will! And that's what it still feels like — if I decide to act, when I decide to do something, it really does seem to me like it's _my_ choice. Yes, there are things I don't tell you, the sparrows—" (Dean frowned; sparrows? What did that mean? Cas did not explain.) "But it feels like _my_ decision not to tell you those things, my own choice; and it always seems like a reasonable decision, a thing you don't need to know, non-tactical...a sparrow."

Here Dean opened his mouth, intending to ask what this "sparrow" thing was about, but Cas went on, still holding Dean's hand in place.

Cas said, "When I awoke in the Empty.... Dean, it felt like me. I had all my memories, so I assumed that I'm still, well, me. I still felt like I was an angel, I still had the same abilities, I still could feel my wings, and they still had the same..." He closed his eyes briefly. "The same feather damage." He opened his eyes again. "I thought I was still me, still making my own decisions. But..." He hesitated again, and now the hand that was holding Dean's wrist tightened. After a moment Cas went on. "Some things that Naomi has done to me, over the years.... Some things she's said..." Cas's voice went a little rough as he said, "I know now, and you know too, that it's possible to control an angel without the angel necessarily being aware. You remember how she did that to me once. She made me hurt you. Badly." Cas paused, and his eyes flicked briefly to Dean's.

All Dean could manage was half a nod. 

Cas nodded back, gravely.

He went on, eyes unfocusing a little now. "At the time, I thought that was a single episode, and that I came back to myself afterwards. Naomi told me, though, that she has done that to me repeatedly, in the past, in biblical times. Which... I still have not really... taken that in, but I thought, or I hoped, that those must have been single short episodes too. I thought, surely I was free of her control now? Of Chuck's control, really? But has that— have I—" Here his voice broke and he halted a long moment, closing his eyes, his brow furrowed. He was still holding Dean's hand to his heart, and now he began rubbing his thumb lightly over Dean's wrist, over and over. For several long moments Cas did not speak.

A little puzzled, Dean pulled his hand off Cas's chest, turning his palm slightly toward Cas's touch. Cas immediately interlaced his fingers with Dean's, and brought his other hand up too, and soon he had both hands wrapped around Dean's again, this time clinging to it as if it were his most precious possession.

After a long moment Cas continued, his voice strained, eyes still closed. He said, " _Has that still been happening to me?_ "

He took a ragged breath and continued, "Is that what's been happening _all along_? All this time? The ideas I have, the actions I take, things I do or don't tell you, is that all being... being _controlled?_ " He opened his eyes at last, gazing at Dean with unmistakable pain as he said, "I told you once that I wasn't a hammer, that I wasn't just a tool, and _I meant that_. I truly believed it, Dean, I truly did; and I risked everything on that belief, _everything_. But what if I truly have been nothing but a... a hammer of God, all along? Even now?" 

Cas fell silent again. He shifted a little; his knees came up slightly, and his head bowed down, as he curled up slightly. A wave of tension seemed to settle into Cas's body. Even the warmth above Cas's shoulders shifted too; Dean had still had his lower arm around Cas's shoulders through all this, and now there was a sensation almost of something closing down, of a faint pressure coming down onto Dean's arm. _The wings_ , Dean thought. _His wings are folding up_.

Meanwhile, Cas brought Dean's right hand nearly to his lips. It was not quite a kiss, but it was close enough that Dean felt Cas's warm breath on his fingertips.

Not quite a kiss; almost a prayer.

The fire crackled; the wind blew. 

"I don't know," whispered Cas. "About me. I don't know. I'll never know."

But a certainty had been coming over Dean the entire time Castiel had been speaking. It had been spreading through him slowly, and it felt like clear water, like light. A certainty, and a clarity. And at last the knot of worry in his stomach loosened, and dissolved. They'd never know _for sure_ , no, but....

Dean said, "There's no way Chuck wrote this. It's not his style."

Cas let out a rough, choked laugh. "Dear Heaven, I hope you're right."

Dean added, "And there's no demon that's this good an actor."

Cas let out another half-laugh. He uncurled very slightly, and the pressure of warmth along Dean's arm flickered a little bit, as if the wings were relaxing minutely.

"Seriously," said Dean. "Chuck's stuff is so heavy-handed. Sibling pairs everywhere, heavy parallels, just bonking you over the head with it. Sam said, about Chuck's last case, it's too easy; he was right, there's a... I dunno, Cas, there's a feel to it, to Chuck's stuff, and _this isn't it_." Thinking about it more, he added, "Also, you should've seen Lilith's acting. She was the best he had, and it was just... not totally believable, y'know? Also, she tried to seduce me, believe it or not, and I was like, ehhhh, no. First, that Chuck would even think she was my type? But more than that, it just didn't ring true. But you— you're—"

Dean's hand was still interlaced with Cas's fingers, and he tightened his grip, holding Cas's hand more firmly. Cas grabbed on more tightly too.

"You're too _you_ to be Chuck," Dean finally said.

"We can't be sure, though," Cas said, emphatically.

"Maybe not," Dean said, with a nod. "Okay, maybe not. Not yet. But we can hope. And we'll work on it. Maybe we'll figure out a way. Find a way to figure it out for sure."

Cas nodded, with a slow sigh. At last he released Dean's hand. Dean allowed himself, then, to cup the side of Cas's face, and give him two quick pats on the cheek, and then squeeze his shoulder.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't remotely enough. But it was something.

* * *

_A/N - They're not done talking. Next chapter posts immediately._


	12. All The Nights

They lay a long moment together quietly, Cas's head still pillowed on Dean's left arm.

"What did you mean, sparrows?" said Dean at last. It was a small thing, just a puzzling phrase Cas had used that had caught Dean's ear, but even the small things seemed like possible clues. They might not have figured out the big problem, but maybe looking at the details might help.

Cas blinked, twice, almost doing a doubletake. He uncurled a bit more, looking at Dean again. "Oh," he said. "Those are just the things we don't report."

"What?"

Cas gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head a little. "Forgive me. It's a shorthand from the garrison. It's a reference to a biblical phrase, about sparrows."

"Oh... " said Dean slowly. This rang a bell. "You mean the thing about, how does it go... Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?" Dean, like Sam, had studied the Bible quite a bit over the last few years — not out of piety, but rather, in an effort to understand the enemy.

Cas nodded. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care," he said, finishing the famous quote. "Matthew 10:29. We were always taught that God grieves over the fall of every sparrow, even though nobody else may notice the little bird fall. It's become a shorthand among angels; in garrison terminology, sparrows are any events that may be deeply moving but are not of tactical significance. We are sent out into the world with a specific mission, you know, and there we see...." He hesitated, glancing at Dean again. "There's such pain in the mortal world, Dean. Such suffering. And when we leave Heaven, suddenly we witness it all — the grief, the love, the pain, all of it, such tremendous things. But we have to complete our mission. In the end we must return to the garrison to report, and there is a problem, you see, in which some of the angels become so... so moved, by what they have witnessed, that it becomes difficult for them to give an objective report. They can be so... very deeply moved, so, um, extremely affected, so...um... distracted—" He hesitated, as if groping for the right word.

 _So traumatized_ , thought Dean.

"... so....very... distracted by it, that the angel's ability to report is impeded." Cas finished. "Because of this phenomenon, we are trained to only report events of tactical significance. A sparrow may fall, or two, or three, or a thousand, but that doesn't matter for the mission." Cas's mouth tightened. "I'm not so sure anymore that God actually does grieve every sparrow, but anyway, the idea is, if we're on a mission to get an army through the gates of Hell, and we see a sparrow fall, we may grieve the fall of the sparrow, but it is not tactically relevant. In such a situation, we are trained to not report the sparrow and only report whether the gate of Hell is open or closed. The army and the gate matter, but not the sparrow." Cas gave a rueful sigh, his mouth twisting. "I see now that I still have that habit, even with you. I only report to you the things that are of immediate tactical relevance. I really hadn't fully realized that you might interpret that as hiding things, or as deceit. It's just how I was trained, you see."

Dean thought about that for a moment.

"Tell me about one of the sparrows," said Dean.

"What?"

Dean took a breath. "Tell me one of things you haven't told me."

Cas paused, looking directly at Dean. For a long moment their eyes met. The firelight shone around Cas's hair, his face still in shadow. The golden light of the fire seemed to glow around his head, and Dean thought, _He's still got a halo_.

It was remarkable how beautiful he was.

It was remarkable, too, how very easy it was to talk now, even lying so close, even with their arms around each other. It should have felt intensely awkward, but it didn't at all; it felt, rather, intensely comfortable.

It was really quite extraordinary how comfortable it felt.

"Okay," Cas said, "For example...." He stopped.

He took a breath. He shifted his gaze, looking past Dean's shoulder toward the shadowy darkness beyond, his head still pillowed on Dean's arm. Dean waited.

Cas's eyes closed.

It seemed he wasn't going to say anything more.

Dean prodded, "For example?"

"For example," said Cas, again, opening his eyes almost reluctantly. He flicked a quick glance at Dean and then looked away again, staring over Dean's shoulder once more into the shadows. "When I was down in Hell with Belphegor and realized what he was doing, he almost killed me. He had begun sucking all the souls into himself; it was all I could do to stay on my feet and not get sucked in myself. There was then a.... a quite difficult battle, actually. For several moments I thought I would lose, and I thought, then, of what would happen next, of you and Sam trying to stop a god-tier Belphegor, much as you tried to stop me, remember, years ago. He would have become immensely powerful. Remember how extremely powerful human souls are; it would have dwarfed what I did with the Purgatory souls. I couldn't let that happen, Dean. I fought my very hardest, and at last I gained the advantage, and I pinned him." Here Cas paused, and Dean was thinking, _That's interesting that he never told me all this_ , thinking the story was over. But then Cas continued: "....and I was about to smite him, but then just at the last moment—" 

Again Cas stopped, staring now almost blankly into the shadows.

"At the last moment," Dean said, trying to prod him a bit.

"At the last moment, right at the end, he spoke in Jack's voice," Cas said. His voice was suddenly almost a monotone, and he closed his eyes. "And he said, in Jack's voice—" (here Cas broke into a whisper) "—Cas, stop, please, it's me, Jack."

Dean stared at him.

Cas opened his eyes, gazing sightlessly into the darkness. "It was a ploy to make me think it was truly Jack begging for his life. But Belphegor forgot that I can still see demons' faces — when I have sufficient power, at least, and I still did on that day. So I knew it was still Belphegor. But to hear Jack's voice once again.... I knew it was Belphegor, I knew what I had to do, so I smote him. I smote him. Jack's face, and body, burned— to— to ash— and so, you see, the only tactically relevant fact was that Belphegor was dead, and the other part...was not... tactically— relevant — " and here Cas abruptly stopped talking, tucking his head down, pressing his forehead to Dean's chest, and he seemed to become a ball of knotted muscle, both his arms now wrapped tightly around his own waist. Dean waited a moment, still stunned by the story, still thinking Cas was going to say something more. But there was only a rough, choked gasp from Castiel. And another.

Then Cas burst out, his voice agonized, "Oh, Dean, he was a _good_ boy, I swear it, Jack was _good_ , I know he was, and I loved him so—" He made another little choking sound; he seemed to stop breathing.

And all Dean could say now was, "I know. I know you did. I did too," — and finally Dean wrapped both arms fully around Cas's shoulders. Cas grabbed Dean around the waist then, with one arm; he grabbed on fast, and he held on tight, face buried in Dean's shoulder now.

"I miss him," Cas managed to say, his voice muffled.

"I do too," Dean said. His own throat was aching.

"I'm so sorry," said Cas next, his voice strained. "About everything. About all of it."

"Don't be," said Dean, and at last he was able to say, "You did nothing wrong."

For a long moment they were both silent.

When at last Cas spoke again his voice had steadied a little, and he relaxed his grip slightly. He said, in a tone almost of puzzlement, "Perhaps this is why I don't tell you these things: it's remarkably hard to _actually speak._ My respiration gets very uneven."

"Yeah, that's called crying, Cas," Dean informed him.

"Angels don't cry," Cas said, shaking his head against Dean's chest.

"Is that so," said Dean. "Look at me."

Cas lifted his head and looked at Dean, puzzled. There was indeed, a shine at the corner of Cas's eyes now, that same awful glitter that Dean had seen in the library. Dean raised one fingertip and very gently wiped the glitter away, first from one of Cas's eye, then the other. Cas blinked at both touches, clearly confused. Dean showed him his damp fingertips.

Cas just frowned. "We're not supposed to cry," he said. "Even when depowered. I mean, it's not supposed to be possible."

"Add it to the list," Dean suggested. "Hey, Cas, I'll make a deal with you." 

Cas narrowed his eyes. 

Dean said, "You said, there's the armies and the gates. And there's the sparrows."

Cas nodded, watching Dean's face.

"I'm betting there's more of those sparrows," said Dean. "Things that you haven't told me."

Slowly, Cas nodded again.

Dean went on, "Here's the deal. If you start telling me about your sparrows, I'll try to tell you about mine." 

Cas narrowed his eyes even further, squinting at Dean in the dark, even tipping his head a little. (Dean had seen him do that particular move countless times; it was rather odd to _feel_ it, for Cas's head was still resting on Dean's arm.)

After a moment, Castiel said, "This won't come naturally to either of us, I suspect."

"Yeah, I know," agreed Dean. "We're gonna suck at it. But we can try, right?"

After another long pause, Cas nodded. "I will tell you about my sparrows," he said, formally, "and you'll tell me about yours."

"Deal," said Dean. He felt a need to confirm the deal physically somehow, like maybe with a handshake, but they already lying far too close together to shake hands. Instead he simply moved closer, and leaned his forehead against Cas's. For a long moment they were both silent.

Cas spoke again, their heads still leaning together. "You know, I think he enjoys heartbreak most of all," he said quietly. "I think he orchestrates situations where we will break each other's hearts." 

The idea struck home with force. _Chuck is trying to break our hearts_ , thought Dean. He'd never thought of it in quite that way, but it made sense.

Cas continued, "I think that when he sees that we have grown fond of each other, he likes to create certain situations. Situations that will make us instinctively try to hide things, like my... my sparrows, I guess; or situations that may force us to lie; situations that force certain actions that will harm our trust in each other. I think he may enjoy the pathos when we are forced to deeply hurt those that we deeply love."

Dean said, "So... he's basically a sadist?" 

Cas gave a little shrug, forehead still resting against Dean's. "I don't think he grasps that we are truly real," he said. "And maybe, to him, we're not, in some metaphysical sense. To him it's all a game. Just a show for his own entertainment. And, in a way, now that we know what he's been doing all along, that knowledge has made it even worse for us. For now we can never trust that what we feel is real. What I sense between us, is _that_ even real? It's always been confusing, and I've never truly known if it's even reciprocated, but now I don't even know if my own heart is actually my own. Is what I feel for you real, or was it all just programmed? I'll never know."

This took Dean's breath clean away, the air actually stilling in his chest for a long moment. 

It was not really a surprise, of course. Cas had spoken many times of the love he felt for "the Winchesters" — both the Winchesters, that is. But what he'd said just now had been slightly different. Very slightly, heart-stoppingly different, and Dean found himself shifting one hand to stroke Cas's hair. And now Cas moved one hand too, very slowly, to Dean's cheek, and he stroked Dean's cheek with his thumb. He did this very tentatively, and with such exquisite gentleness that it made Dean's heart squeeze with pain, and with hope, and with wonder.

In the next moment both of Dean's hands were stroking Cas's hair, and soon Dean discovered that if he stroked the back of Cas's neck, Cas's breath hitchd in his throat. This seemed interesting, very interesting, and Dean began exploring, trailing his fingertips down Cas's shoulderblades, and back up along his neck, and through his hair, over and over. Both Cas's hands had somehow got around to the back of Dean's neck as well, now, mirroring Dean's touches. Every time Dean stroked the back of his neck, Cas's breath hitched again; and he swallowed, and he mirrored the same move on Dean. 

Dean knew suddenly that this place on the back of the neck, this particular kind of touch, meant something, for Castiel. That shuddering sensation of warmth was happening again, too; that quivering in the air. _Wings_ , Dean thought. _It's his wings. I'm sure of it_. He trailed his fingertips from one shoulderblade to the other, then, watching Cas close his eyes, studying the unevenness of his breathing. 

Dean had to get closer still.

He moved his upper arm, wrapping it around Cas's waist.

He started shifting one leg, too, starting to hook it around Cas's hips again.

But Cas shook his head, very slightly. He'd been stroking the back of Dean's neck, but now he moved one hand, setting a warning finger on Dean's lips. Then he put the palm of his hand flat on Dean's chest, right over his heart, and pressed Dean slightly away. Just a few inches; but the message was clear.

"Don't you fucking break my heart _now_ ," said Dean, hoarsely. "Don't you dare."

"We can't do this," said Cas quietly. "Not yet. I can't let you."

Dean wanted to groan aloud. "Why?" he said, unwillingly, for he knew what Cas was about to say.

"Because when you walk away in the morning you'll think about it," Cas said, relentlessly. "You'll think about it, and you'll worry, and within an hour you'll be wondering if you were just raped by one of Chuck's programmed puppets."

The air temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. 

"It'll drive you crazy," said Cas. "I can't let that happen to you." He drew a shaky breath, and added, much more quietly, "And I'll be wondering too."

Dean did not relax his grip around Cas's waist, but he bowed his head, leaning his forehead against Cas's. As much as he wanted to argue, as much as he wanted those electrifying touches to continue, he knew that Cas was right. The huge question they'd wrestled with earlier had not been solved at all, but only postponed. It was still haunting them. Perhaps it always would.

Dean said at last, "That motherfucker really did a number on us, didn't he."

"That he did," agreed Cas.

They were both silent for a long moment. 

"If we ever get out of this," Dean said slowly, thinking aloud. "If this ever ends. If we ever know that we're truly free.... then I want..." He took a slow breath, finally letting himself consider what they'd been moving towards, moments ago. The forbidden dream. The fantasy that had tantalized him for years.

At last Dean simply said it: "If we ever get out of this... I want one night with you."

Cas didn't hesitate. "If we ever get out of this," he replied, "you'll have every night you want, for the rest of your life."

"All the nights, then," murmured Dean.

"All the nights," agreed Cas. 

They lay there then quiet in the dark. The fire still crackled. The wind moaned in the chimney. They did not move closer; Dean managed, through constant mental effort, not to interlace his leg in between Cas's again, not to pull closer, not to lean in. But Dean still had one hand on the back of Cas's neck, and he kept stroking the soft hairs at the back of Cas's neck. And Cas still had one hand wrapped around the back of Dean's head too, and his fingers kept gently moving as well, stroking through Dean's hair too. Such a soft touch it was, so gentle, that Dean felt his throat tightening, and the sting of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes

"All the nights, someday," whispered Cas. He moved a little; and then it was Cas who brushed the unshed tears from the corners of Dean's eyes, Cas who tucked Dean's head down to his own chest, Cas who wrapped Dean in that invisible mantle of warmth. Cas kissed Dean's forehead; Dean kissed Cas's hand in return. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough, but for now it would do.

They lay there quiet in the night, Cas stroking Dean's hair, until at last Dean, exhausted, fell asleep once again.

* * *

_A/N - Please leave a comment if you have a moment. I love to hear from you._


	13. Morning

_A/N - Last chapter. Just a very short wrap-up._

* * *

Dean awoke to a gentle touch on his cheek. The fire was still burning, but a faint gray light was now streaming in the window too. Dawn. And Castiel was kneeling over him, fully dressed, the suitjacket and trenchcoat back on, and even the tie. He even seemed to have dried out the pine-needle socks, and had put the socks and shoes back on too.

"I'm going to get Sam," Cas said.

Dean sat up, awake at once. "I'll come with you," he said, starting to stand up.

Cas shook his head, pressing Dean back down with a firm hand on his shoulder. "Your clothes aren't dry yet. It's already much warmer outside but I don't want you to risk traveling in damp clothes. Besides, there's still no shoes for you at all." He glanced at the gray light streaming through the window. "But Sam'll be desperately worried, and now that it's light, I should go contact him, to reassure him before he starts heading out on another whole day of searching. I'll go tell Sam that you're here. Stay here, stay warm, and Sam will come for you soon."

Dean gave him a narrow look. "Sam _and you_ will come, right?"

Cas looked back from the window to glance quickly at Dean. He couldn't seem to hold Dean's gaze; his eyes dropped, and he looked away again.

"Cas..." said Dean, heart sinking, "you're gonna come back to the bunker with us, right?"

Cas finally looked back at him. After a long moment, Cas carefully knelt on the wooden floorboards just in front of Dean. He leaned closer, and took a moment to wrap one of the blankets a little more securely around Dean's shoulders. Then he took hold of both Dean's hands.

"I can't come back," Cas said. "Not yet."

"You know I..." Dean's voice faltered. "You know I _do_ trust you, right? We're okay now... aren't we?"

"More than okay," said Cas, his hands tightening. "But though _you_ may trust me," he went on, " _I_ don't trust me. Not fully. Not yet." Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Cas cut him off, saying, "What if I come back and something goes wrong again? What if something goes wrong _because of me_?"

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Cas shook his head. "I won't know if I was in control. Dean, I just won't know—"

"I get it," said Dean.

"—and neither will you," Cas finished.

"I get it," Dean repeated, softly, tightening his grip on Cas's hands. "Yeah. I see. I get it. But I don't have to like it."

"I don't like it either," said Cas.

Dean looked at him for a long moment. Then he got up on his knees too, paralleling Cas's position, and pulled the top blanket loose from around his shoulders. He wrapped it around Cas's shoulders instead. "At least take this," he said. "You'll need it more than I will. Stay warm. Promise."

Cas nodded, settling one hand on the edges of the blanket to keep it in place. "All right. But I'll be okay. I'll go find Sam, and then, after that... well, I'll continue to be nearby if you need me. I won't go far. But I'm just going to... keep a little distance. And maybe look into a few things. Do a little more research about Chuck. There might be some things I could do, some information I could gather."

Dean scowled at him. "You gotta keep in touch this time. I mean it."

Cas nodded.

Dean added, "And you _gotta_ tell me about any of those damn sparrows."

Cas nodded again. "I will. There's one or two that may be overdue to tell you about, actually. But... I will still stay away. For a little while, at least. I feel we do need to be cautious, for now. I have to be sure it's not all just more puppet strings."

Dean reached up, then, and put one hand on the side of Cas's head, fingers reaching around to the back of his neck. Gently Dean pulled him a little closer. Cas let himself be pulled, leaning in until their faces were only about a foot apart. Dean then leaned closer still and moved his other hand up too, cradling Cas's face in both hands, looking him right in the eyes.

"We _will_ solve this," Dean said to him. "I swear to you."

A small smile crooked up one corner of Cas's mouth.

Dean had to smile back. It had been quite a long time since he'd seen Castiel smile. "What are you smiling about?"

"When you swear to do something," Cas replied, "You always do it."

"You better believe it," Dean said, half-joking, but then his voice dropped as he said, still holding Cas's face cradled in both hands, "You gotta have faith in me." He almost winced once the words left his mouth — he hadn't planned on referring to "faith" in such a serious way.

But Cas simply said, "I do." He leaned closer; he wrapped both hands around the back of Dean's neck too. As they had last night, they leaned together, foreheads touching.

For a long moment they crouched together like that, heads close together, holding each other. There could be no kiss. Not yet.

But maybe someday.

At last Dean pulled him into a rough hug, clapping him on the shoulder, saying, his voice a little hoarse, "Get going, then, angel. But this time you stay in touch."

Cas stood, with clear reluctance. As he straightened up, one of Dean's hands trailed down Cas's arm, to his hand, and for a lingering moment they were holding hands, still connected. Cas looked down at him.

That uneven smile appeared again on Cas's face, crooking up a corner of his mouth again.

Dean smiled back, with a quite crooked and uneven smile of his own.

Cas took a step back. Dean almost winced as he felt their hands start to pull apart. For a lingering moment they were still in contact, just barely; and then they weren't, hands separating at last. Cas gazed at him for a moment longer. Then he turned, and he left.

Dean watched him go.

For a few moments he could still hear Cas's footfalls walking away in the crisp snow outside, as the quiet day dawned.

Eventually Dean lay back down, gazing at the fire.

Once again, like in the library, the image filling his mind was one of Castiel turning and walking away. But this time there had been no glitter at the corner of Cas's eyes. This time there had been a smile. Just a small smile, a half-smile. Still an uncertain smile, really. But it was a hundred times better. A thousand. A million.

* * *

The sky was bright blue, the sun blazing in the window, and somebody was banging on the door. Dean sat up, blinking blearily. He'd fallen asleep again. He looked around; he was alone.

"Dean? Dean?" Sam's voice. There came another knock. "Dean? Cas called me, he told me where to come — is this the right cabin? Are you in here? Dean?" 

The door creaked open with a blaze of bright sunlight. Chilly air swirled into the room, so cold it made Dean clutch the blankets around himself. There was Sam, looming in the doorway, an anxious look on his face.

"Jeez, there you are!" said Sam, rushing over to Dean. He crouched next to Dean, grabbing him by both shoulders and looking at him closely. "You okay?" He peered at Dean's chest and then at his back, looking him over quickly for injuries.

"Yeah, yeah," said Dean hoarsely. "I'm fine." He looked around the cabin quickly, twisting around to look in every corner, but of course the cabin was empty. Cas was long gone. The fire had burned down by now, leaving just an inch or two of pale gray ashes over faintly glowing coals. Dean's clothes were spread out neatly by the hearth; all looked dry.

"Thought it got you," said Sam. "That damn ghost." Dean squinted up at him, finally noticing how tired Sam looked; his face was drawn, with dark circles under his eyes.

"Sorry, man," said Dean. "Didn't mean to worry you."

"Yeah, you stopped texting, dude," Sam said, slumping down to sit on the floorboards next to Dean. "I burned all the graves we'd dug up, but then I couldn't find you! I got back to the bridge as quick as I could, but I just found the shotgun, and then I found your, um, your..." He fumbled in a pocket and pulled out Dean's flask. "I found this. And its cap. Here."

Dean took the flask and shook it. It sloshed.

"Yeah, there's actually some left," said Sam.

Dean laughed a little. He unscrewed the flask and looked inside; then he screwed the lid on again, and set the flask aside.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you gonna have a swig? It's five o'clock somewhere, isn't that what you always keep saying?"

"Don't need to right now," said Dean. Sam's eyebrow just went higher, and Dean added, "I mean, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with a quality whiskey now and then, but I might've been overdoing it a bit." He shook his head, thinking about how the night had unfolded. "I shouldn't have been drinking on a hunt. Really bad decision."

Sam looked at him for a long moment, and finally shook his head. "Well, I've been running around all damn night looking for you. Went clear over to the next county and back, trying to follow the river. Finally Cas called, a little after dawn. Damn, never been so glad to see his name on the caller id. Knew right away he must've found you." Sam started handing Dean the dried clothes, adding, "Turned out Cas was in town looking for me, but by then I was way down the river road in the other direction." Sam then shot Dean a slightly nervous look. "We had a, um, a nice little talk actually. He apologized for being out of touch, by the way. Said he'd had some stuff going on." With an obvious effort at changing the subject, he said, "So, um, he said you fell in the river?"

"Yeah, but it all worked out," said Dean, standing to pull on his jeans.

"What happened?"

Dean buttoned the jeans. They were warm and toasty. "Cas pulled me out," he said, briefly. "Right above the waterfall."

"How'd he find you, anyway?" 

"Longing," said Dean, pulling his shirt on.

"Longing?" Sam echoed. The uncomfortable look crept back onto this face. He did not ask what "longing" meant; instead there was a long pause, and at last Sam said, "And did you... um... did you get a chance to talk, or anything?"

"Yep," said Dean, buttoning up the flannel shirt (this, too, was warm and toasty). "Actually we did." He looked up to see Sam studying his expression closely.

Sam actually colored a little. He looked away and cleared his throat. "Look, I know you and Cas have some kind of um, problem right now, but I really think—" he began.

"It's okay," said Dean.

"It— what?"

"It's okay now," said Dean. Sam was now giving him a rather suspicious look, and Dean said, "No, really, we're cool now. I swear." He put his hands on his hips, looking at Sam. "Yeah. You were right. We did have a problem. A major problem. Or I did, at least. I guess maybe I should've talked with you about it... it's the Chuck thing. It's always been the Chuck thing."

Sam went very still for a moment. Then he gave a slow nod. "Right," he said. "I... I thought about that. I thought that might be it."

"Turns out it's been bugging him too," said Dean. "He's gonna take off for a little while again. I think he's trying to give us space."

Sam's face fell a little. "Seriously? He's splitting again?"

"He'll be in touch this time," said Dean. He stared out the window for a long moment, thinking of Cas's faint smile as he'd turned away. Thinking about everything, really.

The sun was beaming over the trees now, the sky a bowl of perfect blue. Sam was quiet behind him. At last Dean said, "Sam, it's okay. It's him, Sam. It's really still him. He's still Cas." He took a long breath, turned back to Sam and said, feeling absolutely certain, "He's still Cas, and he's gonna come back someday."

Sam gave him a long, level look. "How do you know any of that?" he said at last.

Dean thought for a moment. There was no real answer, was there? Yet somehow Dean felt certain anyway.

At last he said, looking back at the sun and the blue, blue sky, "I have faith."

* * *

* * *

_THE END_

* * *

* * *

_A/N - Thank you so much for reading my story. I'm so very glad that it seems to have made sense to so many of you - I was really unsure if it would actually hang together for anybody but me._

_Please leave a comment if you have a moment!_

_Materials & Methods will follow soon._


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